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Mall Marketing Team Enlists Models

Posted on: Saturday, 27 May 2006, 00:00 CDT

By Peter Healy, The Stamford Advocate, Conn.

May 26--If someone dressed in a black and white jumpsuit and matching cap offers you a free ice cream cone and T-shirt this weekend, there's a catch. They want you to shop at the Stamford Town Center mall.

The mall's "Go" marketing blitz will feature eight professional models, three men and five women. They will distribute the items at beaches, parks, the Stamford train station and Memorial Day parades in Rowayton and Norwalk.

A complete schedule is at www.findyourgo.com and www.shopstamfordtowncenter.com. The local effort is part of a nationwide promotion for malls that Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Taubman Centers Inc. owns, said Jim Zielinski, marketing and sponsorship director for the Stamford Town Center.

After this weekend, the Go team will appear at Stamford's Farmers Market and Alive@Five concerts in Columbus Park, the Arts, Crafts and Blues on Bedford street festival, Norwalk Oyster Festival and other outdoor venues, Zielinski said.

The team will give out novelty items related to each event, he said. People can participate without meeting the team. Visitors to findyourgo.com can enter a contest to win a Stamford mall gift card.

The Go program also promotes the mall's simplified shopping service, stores coming to the shopping center and reconstruction of the former Filene's department store.

Zielinski said simplified shopping enables customers to get a list of items on sale at stores in a category, such as women's clothes, at the mall. The Town Center's Web site also posts the lists, he said.

"The vast majority said (in a survey) they are time-stressed and they want something quick, simple and easy to use that will give them sales information from their favorite store," Zielinski said.

The Stamford mall will announce new merchants in the coming weeks, he said. Demolition of the former Filene's has begun. It is part of a $50 million rebuilding that would place a tree-lined plaza, storefronts and a courtyard entrance to the mall from Tresser Boulevard.

The 130-store mall can benefit from new retailers, said Kevin Coupe, editor of Darien-based Morningnewsbeat.com, an online news and information service for retailers.

"Gimmicks are fun," Coupe said of the Go campaign. "It might have an impact on getting more people into the mall. But the mall needs good, interesting and compelling retailers."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Stamford Advocate, Conn.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Stamford Advocate, Stamford, Conn.

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