Case Studies

Situation

• Katy Mills is a retail center with factory, outlet and specialty stores located in a west Houston suburb. Katy Mills’ target audience is typically the female bargain shopper from the greater Houston area.


• After a grand opening media splash in 1999, the largest shopping center in Houston, Katy Mills, had media coverage that dwindled to almost nothing. Relations with a major broadcast media personality became strained after a technical difficulty disrupted a live broadcast from the mall.


• The incumbent public relations agency told Katy Mills management that the remote location of the mall was an impossible media barrier to break.


• Katy Mills retained Ward Creative Communications to handle its media relations, including four seasonal events to attract media attention and ultimately drive traffic. The corporate office created three of the four quarterly events but the agency was given free reign to create the all-important fourth quarter holiday shopping event.


• Ward maximized Katy Mills’ publicity budget by asking retailers and corporate partners to participate in various events by donating items.

Objectives

• Ward wanted to drive traffic to Katy Mills by making the four seasonal events newsworthy.


• Ward was also sought to repair the damaged relationship with a broadcast media personality.


• We wanted to develop events and stories that would demonstrate that Katy Mills is the retail shopping center in Southeast Texas.


• Another obstacle Ward faced was luring local media 25 miles out of town and past many other malls to cover a story.

Implementation

• Ward developed and implemented ideas to catch media’s undivided attention. The tactics exercised by Ward focused on peak shopping seasons, seasonal promotions and new tenant openings. To “distance” Katy Mills’ press materials from other retail centers, Ward distributed the materials with items relevant to the topic at hand.


• For tax-free weekend, Ward sent press releases in a ceramic Katy Mills’ piggy bank to pique media interest. These were delivered to specific Houston area media.


• Another way Ward attracted media attention was to develop an exclusive pitch letter with two large Katy Mills shopping bags filled to the brim with quirky infomercial products from the newly opened store, As Seen on Screen, The As Seen on TV Store to Houston Chronicle features columnist Ken Hoffman.


• For the fourth quarter, Ward created an event called Stuffed Stuffing, featuring a vat of turkey dressing shoppers dove in to find prizes and store coupons. A week before the Stuffed Stuffing event, Ward included boxes of Stove Top Stuffing® with the press materials, and delivered them to targeted media.

Results

• Ward more than achieved its goals. Katy Mills’ media coverage exploded, especially during critical shopping seasons.


• Additionally, Ward was able to repair the damaged relationship with the broadcast media personality and was successful in achieving another live remote from the mall.


• Ward maintained strong media coverage for Katy Mills’ Stuffed Stuffing, despite a breaking hard news story later that evening when a local chemical plant suffered an explosion. Three of the major local television stations sent camera crews to the Stuffed Stuffing event at Katy Mills. One station sent out a reporter and camera crew three times that day and the week prior to the event.


• One of Katy Mills’ requirements of Ward was to provide ad equivalency rates for both print and television monthly activity reports. Ward generated more than 50 placements, including 12 network television placements. The ad equivalency, the best of any Mills mall in the nation, from the 10-month time period totaled $833,290 in print and $149,050 in TV ─ a handsome return on the mall’s PR investment.