Every successful employee begins with successful training, Marie Johnson believes, and so she delivered her best advice to the new hires who recently gathered in a vacant store space at Yorktown Center in Lombard.
Bunny does not talk.
Use a hairbrush to fluff up your fur and make sure you’re pretty. Bunny needs to be pretty.
People aren’t quite ready for Easter, so it’s Bunny’s job to draw attention.
Outside, a trio of teen girls took one look at the “Bunny School” sign taped to the entrance of the makeshift training room and burst out laughing.
But Johnson had driven 900 miles to impart her wisdom to these college students, former Chuck E. Cheese mascots and other aspiring Easter actors as part of a national Bunny-training road trip. She didn’t miss a beat.
Bunny ignores the haters. And Bunny uses just one name. Like Madonna.
Year after year, Santa Claus may get most of the press but the Easter Bunny is slowly and skillfully creating a comfortable throne for himself in America’s shopping mall atriums. This spring, some 30,000 children will line up to see the cotton-tailed rabbit at Yorktown, compared with 22,500 five years ago. Companies hired to place Easter Bunnies at shopping centers across the U.S. report similar increases elsewhere.
While sales of Easter candy and Easter outfits may be down, retail analysts say, the Easter Bunny — who, not surprisingly, appears at the mall earlier and earlier each year — remains a sure way to attract shoppers.
“It’s showbiz, that’s what I tell our group,” said Johnson, vice president of Birmingham, Ala.-based IPCA, a company that hires and trains hundreds of Easter Bunnies across the country, including those at Yorktown this year.
“Santa should be a little worried,” said Lindsey Burke marketing director for Yorktown Center. “The bunny has become an icon not only for Easter season, but also for spring.”
Eighth-century Christians named Easter, the Resurrection of Christ, after the springtime celebration of the German goddess Eostre, who represented fertility and new life, said Pamela Frese, professor of anthropology at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Rabbits were often connected with both holidays because of their renowned reproductive capabilities.
After the Civil War, American artists began using cute and cuddly bunny and chickadee images on postcards and Easter greetings.
In the decades that followed, Easter Bunny imagery reflected the times: During the Depression, he was depicted as a factory worker. In the Civil Rights era, he wore beautiful brown fur, Frese said.
These days, the Bunny from Noerr Programs, a digital event imaging company based in Arvada, Colo., sports “more of a dressy look” — a blue velvet jacket and wire-rimmed spectacles, said company president Judy Noerr.
That look, updated from overalls, was just one of the changes that came about as malls increasingly hired national digital imaging companies to supply Santas, Bunnies and photographers instead of trying to coordinate the holiday help themselves.
These companies — there are just a handful, according to Noerr — do the hiring and training and offer the malls a cut of the sales from photos and frames. Yorktown Bunnies make a starting salary of $9 an hour.
Noerr Programs supplies Bunnies to 151 malls and four military bases. The company is responsible for Bunnies at Orland Park Square, Lincolnwood Town Center and River Oaks Center.
While the Easter Bunny still only accounts for 30 percent of the company’s mall business, compared with Santa’s 70 percent
,
Noerr says she expects this year’s attendance to set a company record.
Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg is expecting 5,000 visitors to its Bunny this year, a smaller turnout than Yorktown’s – perhaps because of a later debut on March 6 – but the attraction is more popular than ever, said marketing manager Lisa Stricker.
At Bunny School, Johnson explained to trainees that Bunny doesn’t talk because of an unwritten rule to maintain Bunny uniformity. But there are other responsibilities.
Bunnies, when you take off your suit, turn it inside out and spray it with disinfectant.
Bunny must relieve himself
before
he dresses up.
Opening Bunnies, please, please, allow yourself an extra 30
minutes to get to work.
Meanwhile, his assistants — called “Seater, Meeter, Greeters” — learned how to keep Bunny comfortable. They hold his drinking straw to his cut-out mouth when he’s getting hot. They sneak children’s names into introductions — “Bunny, remember Matthew?” — to help break the ice before placing shy kids onto his lap.
And, perhaps most importantly, they ward off paparazzi parents who attempt to snap pictures with their own cameras instead of buying photos (ranging from $14.99 for “Fluffy’s Favorite” to $39.99 for the ” Best Buy.”)
After three hours of training, Patrick Huetten, 62, embodied Bunny’s winning attitude so well that he was granted the honor of being Yorktown’s Premiere Bunny – who would walk out to a crowd of screaming fans warmed up by a Radio Disney dance party.
“I’m the opening act. I’m going to do a great job, said Huetten, an aspiring party planner who works as a jeweler and bar manager the rest of the week. “They’re going to love me.”
Yorktown management expects to see steady lines for the Bunny through February and March. The week before Easter, they’ll bring out ropes and extra security to manage the crowds. The mall is also introducing its first Pet Night on March 21, when dogs, cats, and other “domestic animals” will be allowed to pose with Bunny.
Frese, the cultural anthropologist, thinks the Easter Bunny’s popularity demonstrates how Americans have increasingly turned to malls as community centers, where people of all religious backgrounds can celebrate so-called civil-religious holidays together.
“People are still seeking some meaning to life, and if they’re not getting it in the churches, it’s at least hopeful for me that they’re trying to get it somewhere,” Frese said.
Dana and Mike Keegan were pleased to discover Bunny on a Saturday morning in mid-February.
The Itasca couple rushed to the Von Maur store to buy a pink hairbow for their 7-month-old daughter, Ava Marie, then turned her over to Seater-Meeter-Greeters who placed the baby on Bunny’s lap while they cooed and cajoled.
“Everyone likes the pictures and the whole hoopla with holidays,” said Dana Keegan, who said she planned to bring Ava back to Bunny for the next 15 years.
But Santa may not need to worry about being upstaged.
The stuffed yellow chickadee employees used to make Ava smile wore a large, jingling sleigh bell. A hand-me-down from St. Nick, perhaps?
