Eggs-capades for a Serbian Easter
Operating across a variety of countries in the way Atterbury Europe does, makes for often interesting insights into how different societies approach cultural events. Easter, for instance, is celebrated later in Serbia than it is elsewhere in Europe, and South Africa. We spoke to Nevena Martinović, PR and Digital Manager for Atterbury’s Serbian partners MPC Properties, to find out how that impacts on the marketing activities.
How does Easter generally impact on trade in Serbia? You also celebrate Easter later; on the first weekend in May – can you tell us more about that?
Easter is one of the most cheerful holidays as it is celebratory, colourful, and family oriented. In Serbia, this holiday is the most special for children, and it creates some of the happiest memories from one’s childhood. Traditionally, before Easter kids are given necklaces with bells and flower headbands, which is in a way also a celebration of spring and life. Another reason why this holiday is particularly special for children is the tradition of painting eggs and the egg-tapping competition. For Easter, families jointly paint and decorate eggs using various techniques, in this way showing their creativity and unique visions. It is a tradition for every household to keep one red egg, known as the “guardian egg” of the family, until next Easter, when it is replaced by a new red egg. This year, as Orthodox Easter is on the same weekend as International Workers’ Day, making it a five-day holiday, most planned kids’ activities and family discounts will take place in the week before. Generally, activities in shopping malls are traditionally oriented towards egg-decorating with artists, kids’ workshops, egg treasure hunts, egg exhibitions and contests where visitors have the opportunity to win shopping vouchers, and of course with sales activities targeted to the whole family.
Last year Covid-19 all but cancelled Easter globally… and in Serbia the malls were also closed until very recently. How have you managed the impact on tenants, and are all stores now open again?
The situation is definitely challenging. Shopping centres were closed for almost a month and just reopened again on 12th April. We continue to be fully responsible in terms of strictly adhering to all Covid-19 measures, while we do our best to maintain our calendar of activities, even though on a much smaller scale. For example, in BEO we have a unique Museum of Illusions installation and exhibition of motors on the central square, which allows visitors to safely engage, be entertained and of course have their photos taken.
Also, as UŠĆE Shopping Center is celebrating its 12th birthday this April, we have organised some safe activities in order to help tenants and push sales. We have a month-long competition with an attractive electric car as the main prize. Also, we have provided significant discounts during four shopping days in order to attract visitors.
All our stores and stands are open and working regular hours. The only exception is restaurants and cafes, which are only allowed to serve food outdoors and offer a delivery service.
What can you share about the specific Easter plans for BEO Mall and UŠĆE Shopping Center?
As egg-decorating is the most known Easter tradition and usually shopping malls have activations that revolve around this, we wanted to do something different for BEO which is in line with the BEO brand communication “Be Yourself”, but also on topic. We decided to organise The Hunt for FaBEOrgé Egg. As Fabergé eggs are the most famous and prized eggs known worldwide, they are also a target of many robbery attempts. Our idea is to make a replica egg and place it on the main square as if it was a part of a museum exhibit. Surrounding the egg would be improvised laser beams made of red thread with bells attached, as if the egg was highly secured. Participants will be encouraged to try and steal the egg without touching the thread and ringing the bell. If they are to succeed, they can take a branded egg home and get an additional prize. We believe that this is a fun way to engage people in the centre and furthermore create a buzz and strengthen BEOs image attributes.