Pyramid Management Partnership

In 2018, The Salvation Army in upstate NY raised $1.5 million in communities surrounding the Pyramid Management Group Portfolio through its Annual Red Kettle Campaign. 14% of those funds, or roughly $213,000, were raised solely on the grounds of Pyramid’s overall footprint. In some instances, localized red kettle campaigns in Pyramid malls raised between 25 – 34% of their campaign goal. This represented a significant impact on the communities Pyramid Management Group locations are involved in.

In early 2019, The Salvation Army approached Pyramid to reveal these overall results and seek further partnership to create significant positive change in these local communities. Both parties met to discuss opportunities and landed on a mutually beneficial relationship that included:

  • Cross portfolio text to donate campaign that raised funds for The Salvation Army while allowing Pyramid to benefit from metrics that will allow the marketing department to effectively price similar campaigns to vendors and retailers moving forward. An added benefit to Pyramid would be the ongoing inclusion of mall logo’s at Salvation Army events as sponsors.
  • Mall employee and retail employee volunteer opportunities with The Salvation Army. These opportunities were to be captured in a page on each Pyramid location’s leasing book to answer tenant questions regarding Pyramids overall corporate social responsibility.
  • Premiere holiday celebration at Destiny USA known as The Incredible Indoor Snow Show. Taking place each weekend between Black Friday and Christmas. The show included magical indoor snow in the Atrium, user-generated content could be displayed on the main atrium screen with holiday themed, animated, Salvation Army :30 and :60 ads and text to donate information to conclude the show and introduce the snow. This show generated a great deal of social media excitement while benefiting our community and creating opportunity to have greater visibility to sponsored partner content.
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Unexpected Events

The night of the preview of the Incredible Indoor Snow Show, an incident at the mall shut the mall down right before the snow fell in the atrium. The incident caused many shoppers to avoid the mall for days to come.

The following night at the premiere of the event I filmed the event, capturing smiles, Santa, snow, and selfies of those that braved the event. Partnerships are not one-sided. In the short run it took me some extra time and energy to attend the event, gather bell ringers, record, and edit the video for Destiny to use on their social media. The video enticed shoppers to slowly return and renew their Christmas shopping efforts.

I followed up later in the campaign with another video to remind shoppers how exciting and memorable the Incredible Indoor Snow Show was as Destiny announced an additional show on Christmas Day. 

As a result of my input into the partnership, Destiny offered an additional event along with space and whatever resources they could assist with. We responded with requesting that we do a Battle of the Bells with local mascots to raise funds in the red kettles. We handled the design and promotion along with the event itself while Destiny’s marketing team made calls to secure the mascots and DJ!

Battle of the Bells

Local mascots, including Otto Orange, the Syracuse Crunch’s Crunchman, WonderWorks Destiny’s Professor Wonder took on local poverty by going head to head in The Salvation Army’s Battle of the Bells in Destiny USA’s atrium. This free event invited attendees to make a donation to the Red Kettle that their favorite mascot was ringing at. Most donations decide which mascot ends up “doing the most good”. The fun didn’t stop there, throughout the one-hour battle, DJ Bella J rocked this Red Kettle event with a kid’s dance party throughout the competition and leading up to Destiny USA’s The Incredible Indoor Snow Show. The winner, Otto Orange, was announced following the Snow Show.