The Mall Phenomenon

Women and mothers are a major component of the workforce, signaling the largest cultural change of our time, and many are also the lead breadwinners in their households. Almost 14 million married couples with children relied on two incomes in 2009, representing 60% of all married couples with children. In the U.S. today, 73% of employed women worked full time, while a third worked part time. The number of working women has risen from 18 million in 1950 to 66 million in 2010. Women continue to lead very busy lifestyles; in many cases, whether they are employed or not, they still fulfill multiple tasks inside and outside of the home. As a result, marketers are continuously introducing many products to provide quick and easy solutions to women’s new priorities to help make their lives less stressful.

• Females constitute 66% of the customer traffic in shopping malls.
• They go to a mall 3 times per month.
• On average, women shop for 1 hour and 32 minutes per visit.
• Working females are by far the largest sales contributors, accounting for 41% of total sales.
• 25-to 54-year-old female shoppers are the largest spending block, contributing 40% of mall sales.
• Female shoppers spend an average of $105.80 per visit.

The Female Consumer

• In the U.S., women oversee 80% of consumer spending, totaling $3.7 trillion. They control more than $20 trillion or about 70% of global consumer spending.
• Women are responsible for 85% of consumer purchases.
• 75% of women are the primary shopper for all household products.
• On average, women spend 8 hours shopping per month.
• Women's apparel sales amounted to $108 billion in 2011.
• Women influence 91% of home sales.
• Women spent $667 on electronics in the last year while men spent $728, a small difference of $61 annually.
• Women buy 52% of all new cars sold in the U.S., influence more than 85% of all car purchases and are the fastest growing segment of buyers for new and used cars.

Lifestyle Marketing

Many marketers are rethinking their strategies for reaching women, and many are changing their media buys as women change their lifestyles. Women are often in a time crunch and to maximize their time, a trip to the mall is followed by a stop at the grocery store or by running other errands. The ever-increasing demands on the time of women create both new opportunities and challenges for brands. There is no better place to promote these brands than in the mall environment, where these busy consumers are in the state-of-mind to make brand choices and are most receptive to messages that are relevant to them. Research has shown that in one visit, MallScape generates recall levels of 42% (half of that unaided) with over half expressing intent to try the advertised products. In a different study, 77% of respondents said that MallScape advertising is likely to inform them about new products that might be of interest to them; 80% responded that MallScape is likely to remind them about products they “are familiar with and might buy either while in the mall or later.”

MallScape closes the media communications loop. Reinforce your creative with those previously exposed to other media, and reach those in your target demo who you may have missed!

To allow marketers to effectively reach a high concentration of their target, we have screened our entire portfolio to retain only the malls that are most appealing to them. We have created different networks of malls, some with a high concentration of working moms, others focusing on “soccer moms” or single professional women. Also, to make our selection, we turned to Scarborough to obtain each mall’s household demographics.

Contact any JCDecaux MallScape sales representative for customized information.

*Refer to pdf for source information