International Council of Shopping Centers

Challenge  The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is a prominent worldwide trade organization with 3,000 Canadian members from the owner/developer, investment, retail and consultant communities within the shopping centre industry.  In order to advance the development of the industry, our challenge is to promote the diversity of organization members and the business of shopping in a positive way.

Strategy   Use ICSC Canadian conferences and retail and business forums (six to eight per year) as an opportunity to communicate the overall objectives/issues facing the industry and to drive retail, marketing, business and consumer lifestyle stories relevant to the Canadian public.

Tactics

• Develop a series of storylines relating to each conference to pitch to the media
• Identify spokespeople (ICSC committee members, experts, company CEOs) to be interviewed as authorities on given topics
• Leverage our longstanding media contacts to secure coverage of ICSC member businesses
• Release shopping centre data where applicable

Results

• Media coverage assessed as worth over $1 million per year
• Yearly average of 200 media hits (consumer and trade) across the country and in two languages
• Ongoing media requests for ICSC spokespeople as authorities on shopping trends throughout the year