During August, student groups represented eight different customers called Owners, Landlords, General Managers, Tenants, Shoppers, Media, Service Providers and Suppliers. The groups had to do research on how the mall’s stakeholders fit into the role of “customer” for the Centurion Mall. This included an understanding of the stakeholders’ expectations, what shapes their perceptions and how to create a positive experience for them.

The students found the assignment challenging but extremely valuable, mainly because they realised that the ‘customer’ is not always the ‘end customer’. The students therefore realised that it takes a diverse group of people to create an experience for the shopper. The groups presented the reports to the panel from Word4Word Marketing ( the leader in shopping-centre marketing) who said that they were impressed with the students’ understanding of these various customers. The student group that represented the Service Providers as a customer group were crowned as the winners of this marketing challenge.

As part of the project, Kristi Maree, who is the Managing Director of Word4Word Marketing, shared her knowledge on marketing, social media and shopping trends with the students. She also commented on the business importance of social media and how marketers need to learn to speak the language of the client. The team from Word4Word Marketing left the students with the following thought: “You are an informed, mature and confident group of students and certainly hireable”.

Fern Shaw (one of the honours students) commented that “the presentation by Kristi was truly inspiring. In my opinion she was one of the best guest speakers we’ve had”.

 
From the left, Pierre Botha (Marketing Manager, Centurion Mall), Alrita Groenewald (National Marketing Executive, Word4Word), Karlien Koen (Marketing Manager, Word4Word), Kristi Maree (Managing Director, Word4Word) and Dr Gené van Heerden (honours lecturer)