Sweet Retail Marketing Memories

Musings from Dennis #66: Lovely feelings! Two memorable retail marketing success stories in Singapore I can’t get out of my head. The first one was in 2001 when we launched Disney Princess at Raffles City with the then Sogo Department Store. The mall show in the atrium was stupendous with 28 Disney characters that the mall spent a princely amount on – but we knew that was just a sales driver for where the real action ought to be – the retail pop up store right next to the stage – and yes the response was overwhelming. I remember trying to help fold the little girl Princess blouses over and over but gave up after 30 minutes because the shoppers kept pulling them off the wagons, shelves and racks! Then in 2016, with Nickelodeon and when we launched PAW Patrol at City Square Mall with the first ever live stage show, the response was really unexpected. Soon after each show, the shelves where the toys and stationery items were display began emptying themselves. Parents were seen grabbing a Chase under one arm while holding onto a Marshall and a Skye in the other. (I got photo proofs). The cashiers were happily ringing non-stop and we had to get the toy distributor to open their warehouses on both Saturdays and Sundays just to fill back those fast-emptying shelves! I remember being happy one Sunday seeing the shelves filled at 5pm and then going home to take a nap. I was awakened at 7pm by our upset mall owner “Hey Dennis why are the shelves empty? See those photos in your phone..” What? We just filled them 2 hours before! Unhappy situations? No, quite the other way around!