Nature’s traditional predictors of spring-groundhogs, hibernating bears and television meteorologists-may not be as reliable as the herd of brontosauruses at the mall.
After all, the brontosaurus has proven economics on its side.
The mechanically animated saurian and a herd of 11 of its Mesozoic relatives recently showed up at Stratford Square, the shopping center in west suburban Bloomingdale, to inaugurate a round of pre-spring promotions at Chicago-area malls.
Those pre-spring promotions typically signal the awakening of the American consumer after a long winter’s nap. The nap, of course, is induced by post-Christmas financial exhaustion and a reluctance to brave blizzards to shop for anything but necessities.
“January and February represent less than 10 percent of a mall’s business,” said Robert W. Long, head of the investment group that owns and operates Yorktown Center in Lombard. “People are shopped out from Christmas and are doing their (income) taxes.”
By comparison, December sales usually account for 20 percent of the annual total, added Diana Miller, general manager of the Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee. So beginning in mid-February, malls run promotions to lure potential customers.
The dinosaur exhibit, jointly sponsored by JMB Retail Properties Inc. and the Chicago Academy of Sciences, between now and April will travel to Stratford Square, Fox Valley Center in Aurora, Hawthorne Center in Vernon Hills and River Oaks in Calumet City.
Woodfield, the area’s largest mall, recently staged a Valentine’s Day extravaganza in which 94 people either were married or renewed their wedding vows. It plans its traditional kickoff of the spring shopping season next month with the appearance of the Easter Bunny and some cartoon characters.
Yorktown has a home and garden show planned for March 10-13.
“We look to get some extra traffic, and hope they will buy something while they’re here,” said Miller of Spring Hill, which is now offering a free gift to any customer buying $400 or more in merchandise.
Jim Linowski, general manager of Woodfield, said the turnout at the Valentine’s Day wedding and vow renewal promotion surprised even him.
“We had over 10,000 people come out, some just to watch,” he said.
Because of its size and large trade area, Woodfield typically runs only two promotions a year-a back-to-school special to kick off the fall shopping season and one in the spring.
“Apparel sales drive business in the shopping centers, and that’s when people shop,” Linowski added.
This month’s promotions happen to coincide with data that show the long slide of America’s shopping centers has ended.
“Things have stabilized in the last few years,” said William Roop, president of Stillerman Jones & Co., an Indianapolis-based consulting firm that tracks data on malls.
In the 1980s, the average number of mall stores visited, the average time spent in malls and the percentage of people who drove to malls to shop in specific stores declined, he said, but those trends have begun to reverse.
The average number of stores visited per mall trip has remained steady at 2.6 in the last few years.
The average time a shopper spends in a mall has increased to 72 minutes from 68 minutes in 1990. The average amount of money spent on a visit to a mall has increased from $45.65 in 1990 to $54.29 in 1993, despite the slow recovery from the 1990-91 recession, Roop said.
The percentage of people going to a specific destination in a mall, as opposed to just window shopping, has increased to 50 percent this year from 45 percent in 1991, he added.
“One of the advantages malls have (over discount superstores) is their ability to offer things like promotions, entertainment and community events,” Roop said.
“We’ve always run promotions,” said Cindy Bohde, vice president of marketing and communications for JMB, the region’s largest mall operator. “But we have learned they aren’t something we do just to combat a slow season.”
Mall operators also have to be careful that the promotions appeal to shoppers. The brontosaurus exhibit that JMB terms “Jurassic Safari” after the popular movie “Jurassic Park” is intended to be educational as well as entertaining. Even so, many of the dinosaurs represented lived in the following Cretaceous geological period.
Furthermore, some visitors noticed that the exhibited Utahraptor, a larger cousin of the carniverous Velociraptor from Jurassic Park, is gnawing on moss and burlap instead of meat.
The original exhibit built by Dinamation International had the beast chewing on another dinosaur, but mall officials vetoed that as too gory for the tots.
