Dollars To Your Ears
Mall Radio Network provides centers with entertainment, and makes them money at the same time.
Randall Shearin

What if you could entice customers while they shopped to buy more? Many developers have tried this over the years with visual advertising via monitors and stationary billboards in malls. But several developers have caught on to a new trend — an audio program customized for a particular mall. It's a service of Natick, Massachusetts-based Mall Radio Network, and it's revolutionizing the way for common area entertainment.

Mall Radio Network's Web site.

MRN broadcasts a mix of adult contemporary music with a powerful audio advertising platform. In every hour, 50 minutes will be music, and 10 minutes will be advertising. The service is always up and running. The network is only in the common area of the mall, not in the stores. This includes areas like the food court, the garages and restrooms. Most centers have more than 300 speakers.

MRN is currently in more than 50 malls from Boston to Los Angeles and has signed up more than 150 centers to receive the service. Developers that the company works with include Westfield, General Growth, Simon and Glimcher. The company is developing programming for all of Westfield's malls. It has programming in Simon and General Growth properties in New England. One of the first malls that MRN programmed was Jersey Gardens for Glimcher.

In addition to the entertainment value of MRN, the system also increases sales for a mall. With 80 percent of the mall's shoppers listening to MRN's programming, and 51 percent recalling ads that they heard, the system proves itself effective. The rate for teenagers is even higher. Since MRN is a broadcast, shoppers can't avoid it, as they would a billboard or video screen.

Chudnofsky's favorite statistic is that 70 percent of all mall customers do not make a decision to buy until they are in the mall.

“If you are in a three-story mall, you hear the programming on all three floors, the restrooms, the food court, the garage and the exterior of the center; it is very hard to avoid it,” says Chudnofsky. “It is a very influential message, especially for the 70 percent of customers who haven't made up their minds to buy.”

By managing the sound system in an appropriate manner, MRN also increases the value of the mall as an asset. Because a lot of the costs are offset by the advertising, the system is very cost effective for a center owner. In fact, MRN even revenue shares with developers – making a direct impact to a center's bottom line.

“We've taken an expense line of a mall buying music to play in the malls and turned it into a revenue line,” says Chudnofsky.

MRN has an advertising sales team that is targeting companies who want to reach shoppers. Cosmetics companies like Estee Lauder and Clinique are big advertisers. Apparel companies like Calvin Klein and Liz Claiborne are also using MRN to reach mall customers. Wireless companies like Cingular and Sprint are also driving customers to their stores, many of which are located in the common areas of malls.

“Just about every ad we run is call-to-action advertising,” says Chudnofsky. “The ads send shoppers to a department store or a particular retailer to find a product.”

Cosmetic advertisers, for example, often advertise “free gift with purchase” at a particular store, thus driving consumers to the store and to the particular brand. The programming essentially creates a national audio audience for a particular product or brand. It is something that can't be done using static advertising like billboards.

The ability to quickly change the programming is invaluable, according to Chudnofsky. It makes the mall so flexible as an advertising medium to advertisers. In February, the day after the Grammys, MRN had the winners playing on its programming, with a promotion that offered the songs at FYE stores nationally. MRN had arranged the deal with FYE, a division of TransWorld Entertainment. The promotion told shoppers they could purchase the music at FYE stores.

“There is a lot in the music business that can be applied, as far as introducing new artists and labels,” says Chudnofsky. “The new artists can't get on the radio, so the malls are a perfect place to test their play.”

The ability of the system to be customized to the mall is extremely beneficial. At Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton in Wheaton, Maryland, currently under redevelopment, Hecht's, a division of May Company, ran an ad announcing the opening of its new store at the center the week of the opening.

“We do a lot of department store advertising that is running in the common areas, not in the department stores themselves,” says Chudnofsky.

The mall owner and MRN mutually agree on how loud the volume should be for the center.

“Over the last 2 years, the system has had incredibly strong results at current volume levels,” says Chudnofsky. “We are not overly intrusive, but customers do hear the ads and they do react to them.”

In the future, MRN is looking to add entertainment programming other than music, such as sports scores and weather reports tailored to a particular area.

MRN has a national installation team that, when a mall contracts with the company, goes into the center and upgrades the sound system. The company changes out all the speakers — since the systems in most centers are 20 years old, estimates Chudnofsky — and all the amplifier and receiver equipment. MRN pays for all the upgrades as part of the service. MRN also installs its technology, which downloads programming. MRN's technology also controls the volume level by measuring the traffic in the mall at any given time.

“The idea is to sound the same at 2 p.m. on a Saturday, when there is a lot of traffic in the mall, as it does on Monday at 10 a.m.,” says Chudnofsky. “Our goal is that the sound always be clear and intelligible.”

In another tie-in with FYE, with the Ray Charles-themed Grammy awards, MRN had Ray Charles's music playing all week on its network, with the offer at the end that the music was available at all FYE stores. The company also tied in with FYE stores as part of Nat “King” Cole month, playing his music and telling shoppers where the music was available for purchase. It is call-to-action advertising that works, says Chudnofsky.

Chudnofsky is the former president of WellsPark Group, which was the combined management company of New England Development and The O'Connor Group. The companies managed many malls in the Northeast before selling to Simon and General Growth in 2001. When he was a mall operator, Chudnofsky always believed — and still does — that the mall is a medium. At WellsPark, he developed the WellsPark Media Group, which actively promoted the company's centers as a medium for entertainment.

“When I first got into the mall business 17 years ago, whereas a lot of people walk into a mall and see bricks and mortar, I saw customers,” says Chudnofsky. “I spent a lot of time in my career figuring out how to manage the customer while he or she is in the common area of the mall.”