You may have noticed that I typically don't blog about my day job. However, today was the first day of the PMA's Shopper Marketing Summit. I've never been to Minneapolis before, so it was a special treat to have a tour of the Mall of America. According to the presentation from EVP Maureen Basch, there's over 4 million square feet of retail space and they're about to add another 5 million with a new development. Also, there's a very cool amusement park that puts my local Chuck E. Cheese to shame. Nickelodeon just took over from the estate of Minneapolis native and Peanuts creator Charles Schultz. Take a look:
A store that caught my eye was Gilly Hicks (here and here), a concept that is backed by Abercrombie & Fitch. Basically, they sell women's underwear, and expect to compete with Victoria's Secret for 20-something women. Whereas Victoria's Secret is bright, GH feels like a club filled with lots of nooks and crannies, you know, places where you might hook up.
Also, this event gave me a chance to try some live twittering via Twitterberry, a twitter application for Blackberry. Apparently, Twitter was having some problems, but overall it works pretty well. You can see all of my tweets from the day here. Feel free to subscribe, if you like.
"get the hell over it"? WTF, James? There's no need to be rude. I don't think I'm expressing any kind of shock at GH's sales strategy here. Merely pointing out my impressions of the store.
Glad you stopped by, but we could all do without the snottiness.
Thanks.
Posted by: Rob Fields | July 21, 2008 at 13:46
Gilly Hicks Sydney is agreat store, it can make women feel good about themselves in next to nothing. Gillys is better than victorias secret because it is more interesting, and it is part of A n F. A n F is by far more popular than Victorias in the first place, there is no doubt in my mind that Gillys will do better than Victorias. And sex sells, if you dont like that, its fact, get the hell over it
Posted by: James | July 21, 2008 at 13:41