All In A Day's Work: That's shoppertainment
Jan Li Po-yi, marketing and promotions officer, retail marketing and promotions department, Tuen Mun Town Plaza
I joined Sino Group as a management trainee shortly after I graduated from a local university in 2005. In my first year with the company I was given the chance to rotate from one department to another. Towards the end of the training programme I decided to stay in the retail marketing and promotions department of Tuen Mun Town Plaza as a marketing officer.
Tuen Mun Town Plaza is a huge shopping mall, so there are events going on constantly throughout the year. Occasionally, there is more than one event happening on the same day.
My department has a few teams that are responsible for their respective shopping malls. Because we rarely outsource to a marketing communications company for help, we do our own thinking to devise events and see them through from idea development to full implementation.
We begin by brainstorming and are encouraged to throw out ideas relating to the latest trends and anything that is currently popular, especially something that younger shoppers are interested in.
To help broaden the scope of our creative ideas, my department conducts regular market research with target groups to find out what these people want and what would motivate them to spend when in a shopping mall. The results definitely help us to conceive an event that would be popular.
Occasionally, we take our ideas from events that have happened outside Hong Kong. We can adapt these ideas to suit local tastes. For example, we held an ice cream festival last summer and the concept was derived from a similar event in Japan.
Once the idea for an event is chosen and approved, we will work out which teams will do what tasks, and decide on a specific timeline for all those tasks.
Teamwork is essential in my department. No one takes credit for doing something better or faster than the others because without full co-operation from any one party a project can be spoiled.
Events that happen concurrently at the mall do not worry me at all because in my department there is no shortage of staff and everyone sticks together like a family. As long as the logistics are well planned ahead of time and everyone is kept fully informed, there's almost no chance of chaos.
A good example of this happened last year when the Tuen Mun Town Plaza celebrated the grand opening of its new wing on the third floor. Some top local celebrities were invited to perform, together with a live radio broadcast. At the same time, a fashion show took place in the same complex with a lucky draw, attracting hordes of visitors to the event and making the whole mall really packed.
I felt like I had an adrenalin rush on that day that I had never had before. Luckily, everything went well and according to plan.
In the business of event management for shopping facilities, there is no low season for the promotions department because we have to schedule different events for each month and monitor the traffic throughout the entire shopping mall.
Our workload peaks when Christmas and Lunar New Year approach as they are the busiest times of the year.
I get a lot of job satisfaction by creating fantasies for visitors and enhancing their shopping pleasure, although a lot of hard work is involved during the planning process.
