The word "collection" has cachet. That's what the marketing gurus who renamed the expanded Natick Mall are betting on. General Growth Properties Inc., which last week renamed the mall Natick Collection, is picking up on a mall-naming tactic that's been used by other shopping centers wanting to make the transition to high-end, mixed-use retail destination, a marketing expert said. Natick Collection won't be the only mall with the "Collection" moniker. Tim Ross , a principal with Seattle-based Kendall Ross Brand Development and Design, recently helped rebrand a group of malls in northwest Washington as Bellevue Collection. Somerset Collection, a mall in Troy, Mich., is another example.

  "We see it coming back a lot more in the last couple of years," said Ross, whose firm helps companies market themselves at times of growth and transition. "The idea of 'collection' conveys a certain level of luxury or a certain level of premium. At the same time, it is sophisticated and also says there are multiple things you can get or do within the area." The new name seems destined to take some getting used to. "It's very different," said Joan M. Craig , community relations coordinator for Natick's Morse Institute Library. "Quite often in doing marketing and publicity in my job, I have to remember that if you have to explain it, perhaps you should change it." Craig said there were plenty of other options that would probably roll off shoppers' tongues more easily. "Just off the top of my head, Natick Place, or the Villages at Natick or something could have explained a lot more about what they were trying to say," she said.

Read the full article, as featured in "The Boston Globe" - February 25, 2007




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