Frugality Sparks Creativity

In every seasonal activities conducted in SM Supermalls, one factor is definite; it will always go big time, as big as SM’s name in the industry.

In today’s Marketing approach, we do not just entice people to shop, dine and have fun in SM. We have given our shoppers what they are looking for in a shopping mall, modesty aside SM is now far beyond being the second home of millions of shoppers nationwide. The challenge has leveled up to creating a lifestyle which people will admire to be part of. This really sounds costly because innovation and creativity always twin up with pricey investments. Success stories of SM is an open book to all of us but aside from the many reasons behind, SM definitely was able to inculcate the value of prudence to all its employees.

The challenge to Mall Marketing is to outdo its performance vs. last year in terms of event implementation, budget management, creative efforts and a lot more. Therefore we shouldn’t run out of creative juices, or else we wouldn’t fit anymore to the trends that SM is eyeing forward.

The Chinese New year being the very first seasonal campaign for the year has been a great start for Marketing. We saw all equally beautiful centerpieces across all malls; atriums were decorated with Chinese lanterns creatively hung on different heights giving us a really Chinese ambience. I am pretty sure people enjoyed the celebration; it was evident in the social networking sites as I see fellow Batangueños post their photos in our Chinese temple and Ang Pao tree. It is rewarding to hear good comments but seeing people enjoy the fruit of our labor is good enough to inspire us to do more and keep our passions alive. Indeed, it was all applause beyond words.




Chinese New Year Centerpiece - view from 2nd floor

 


Batangas KIPSI students performed an authentic chinese dance. Our temple fits well :)



When everyone else thinks it’s easy to hire a contractor to deliver our needs for thematic set up, it’s impractical to pay them our entire month’s budget for one centerpiece. This is the time when we need to improve our perspective on available resources of the company.  Passion is the key to create beauty out of a scrap. Our ideas for Chinese New year centerpieces were overflowing but for it to materialize within the given budget were a totally different story. The good thing with the situation, it pushes our creativity to the next level, most of the times we are surprised to discover alternative materials of the same effect with the expensive one but of totally lesser cost. Perfect example was the red carpet that we used last year; this time around our flooring was a bright red taffeta, with superb luster and easier to maintain than the red carpet. A trip to our storage also helped as we found good materials to recycle to build the Chinese temple. And who would think our Ang Pao tree was recycled?  It was an old red tree that we keep; it was used several times in different seasonal activations. It has been an Easter Egg tree, it was even borrowed by other malls. This year it was repainted with sunlit gold, fuchsia cherry blossoms were extended on the branches to symbolize good fortune, low-priced gold foil were added to achieve balance of colors between red and fuchsia. The result is an abundant ang pao tree, signifying a prosperous Chinese New Year.



Lucky Ang Pao Tree



The creative minds of Marketing team, the artistic hands of our VDD team and support from Operations made it all possible.  This certainly proves that two heads are better than one and stunning centerpieces need not be costly.  Without a doubt frugality benefits us in unexpected way – it prompted the creativity within ourselves!