We have met with Giovanna Gregori, Head of Marketing, PR and Corporate Relations of McArthurGlen at O2 Ritz Carlton summer terrace. Beautiful surroundings, warm weather and fantastic panorama of Moscow and ancient walls of Kremlin created this special atmosphere of our conversation, where we have talked about global marketing rules and their appliance in local markets, about role of luxury on our life, and new model of consumers’ behavior which is more consonant nowadays than ever before. Anyhow, mathematics and statistics are not the steel guarantee of success, and still there’s a huge place for marketing intuition and creativity.

Photo: 1. Panoramic view from O2 Ritz Carlton summer terrace; 2. Irina Karimova, Head of FashionEducation.ru (on the left) and Giovanna Gregori, Head of Marketing, PR and Corporate Communications Department, McArthurGlen.

Giovanna, my first question is about your plans as Marketing director – what goals you want to achieve at this position?
First of all I started at McArthur Glen two years ago, in July 2012. When I arrive to McArthur Glen there was primarily communication structure, it was not marketing defined and organized. So, my boss was Marketing Director of McArthur Glen, and she wanted to find somebody from the luxury business, because the company needed to be brought to another step of development in terms of PR, communication and b2b relationship, within the area of fashion and luxury. In fact, McArthur Glen was born as a property operator, then they grew into development and retail business, and automatically, big marketing components and structure should be created. This process of development and clarifying of marketing and business goals took about 20 years, since it has been started.
So, Sharon, my boss, created really big structure and invented huge advertising campaign for all the countries where McArthur Glen is presented (at the moment our outlets are in eight countries). Sharon developed corporate image of the brand, and she needed to do the same with the communication and PR. I came basically to the communication area and at the moment I have three or four different departments reporting to me. We keep relations with all the brands - we have 940 brands in total - and we keep close relations with TOP50 of them. We do very specific brand promotion, and that is one side. Then we are always in b2b area, we have a department which physically related with the leasing and development people, and we produce all the needed advertising materials (brochures etc) to help them to sell our centers. Same thing for leasing – we have new brands coming all the time, and we have a rotation of brands among centers as well, and we develop all the supporting materials. We also participate in exhibitions and fairs, and we support all the corporate events where we have to participate. As we moved to the corporate communication side, we have a department which is creating all the messaging that comes out from the company: press-releases, videos, digital materials etc. And the third part is consumers’ relations, which is very important. We work via the local PR agencies to create and promote shopping centers image and positioning.
We do also a lot of entertainment in SCs, and we have a team which coordinates all our activities.So that is a basic structure. We work with twelve PR-agencies all over the world, including Russia.
The big challenge in these past three years has been basically to create the coordination between all these twenty centers. Before that every center was like a separate company itself, with a center manager, center’s marketing manager etc. Now it was time to not only advertise with the same campaign all over the world but also to PR and press-releases, and events which are standard of company’s policy everywhere. So that was about building the brand, always respecting the local specific, but at the same time with the general idea. So, the signage, logo, every little piece of marketing which we do - should be the same everywhere. All that is done to cover consumer’s expectation: entertaining, service, events etc, as well as the level of brands which we do present, is also under our control. And that’s a great challenge – to balance between global and local, and to create strong image through our centers.

Speaking about different markets, what do you think about Russian market?
Russian tourists are our first nationality, if we speak about non EU-citizens. Let’s say, Russians and Chinese are somewhere near. Particularly, Russian tourists come with a very clear idea about what they want, they are very sophisticated consumers, they look for certain brands which underline their status, and they know how to mix the brands, combining luxury with the mainstream. And that is the concept of our shopping centers – from Prada to Nike or Timberland. Mixing fashion and high-level brands – is one of the leading trend of nowadays, for example to have a piece from Zara, and a piece of Gucci. Russian consumers are really good in this, and when they come to our shopping centers, they really pick and choose from our brands. And they appreciate that we give real value for money, which is our policy. That is not because of low quality or very old collections – sometimes we have even the samples or pieces from fashion shows. Also, the shops are managed by the brands, and that also gives guarantee of best price and high quality, with the same level of quality as you can find in any company’s store. And the environment is extremely friendly – we have special offers and stores for all the family; kids wear, men’s wear etc.

So, it’s like a Fashion Kingdom!
Yeah, and we call it sometimes a Fashion Paradise. Safe, clean and nice environment, where you can shop, make a break, spend time together. Of course, that is not in the city centre, but you can get to our SCs easily. So, we make your shopping fun and easy. It’s enjoyable shopping experience!

OK, and our traditional question – what advice you can give to a person who would like to start a career in fashion?
The key advice for a person who would like to work in Marketing and Communication in Fashion, is to keep strong authenticity. Our customers are strong experts, they know more than we think. So, the brand should create the loyalty, so the lot of compromising doesn’t work anymore. Authenticity is the main approach, people need to feel the promise, the heritage, so be loyal to the DNA of your brand. So many brands in a fashion world, in a luxury wrld – but if the brand or designer starts to lose its DNA, people quickly recognize that. Today consumers are very smart, they look for a good product, real product, real value for money. They understand if a product costs more, for example, if it is cashmere sweater from Lora Piano. The second advice – storytelling, which is the main tool for creating image in fashion and beauty sectors, and creates the richness and positive attitude. And third, all channels for promoting which you use – press, outdoor, digital etc, should be integrated and support each other, because the same consumer uses all the channels to get info when he goes to shop.

Thanks a lot for a really good advice and interesting conversation!

We think that shopping in the McArthurGlen Outlets is a really good experience and great pleasure! The companies who pay so much attention to marketing part of business – are always successful!