Simon
Selects Knight Avante To Design, Fabricate and Install Innovative
New Children’s Play System
Look
out moms and kids, here it comes! With several locations
already open, and numerous additional locations slated to
open throughout 2004 and 2005, Simon Property Group’s
innovative new nationwide play area program is sure to take
the shopping center industry by storm. “What,”
you ask, is so innovative and unique about these new Simon
play areas? Well . . . everything!
When
play areas first hit the market about four years ago, they
were nothing more than overgrown plastic replicas of breakfast
foods or soft-drink cans. Since then, play areas have been
continuously evolving. One look at a new Simon play area
and it is clear that they are light years ahead of what
most other malls are offering. Simon’s exclusive play
area designer, fabricator, and installer, Knight Avante
Playthemes, has graced every detail with an unprecedented
style and sophistication. Each play area features a beautiful
hardwood millwork package. You read correctly, not veneers
or composites, but real, solid hardwoods. The design and
finish of each millwork package is carefully matched to
the existing mall finishes, making a brand new play area
appear as if it has always been there.
Inside
the play area one immediately notices the hand-carved soft-foam
play elements. Knight Avante artisans have mastered this
talent, taking play elements from the usual “comic
strip” look to something every bit worthy of the next
full length animated film. Other unique features and amenities
include hardwood libraries stuffed with children’s
books, interactive and educational elements, baby-changing
stations, integrated trash units and much more.
All
of these unique features are certainly a welcome improvement
over the status quo, but they’re still not what makes
these new Simon play areas so amazing. No, as beautiful
and seamless as they are, hardwood surrounds are not what
is going to rock the shopping center world. The “bombshell,”
if you will, is the unprecedented way in which Simon and
Knight Avante have drawn together marketing, branding, promotions
and advertising.
Unified
across the entire Simon portfolio, each play area is essentially
a gigantic 3-D advertising and promotion tool. It all begins
with Simon’s nationwide advertising campaign and in-mall
kids club, The Simon Kidgits Club. The Kidgits Club campaign
is heavily branded and full of colorful cartoon graphics.
Simon has created an entire “Kidgits” world,
complete with brightly colored “Kidgits” houses,
“Kidgits” kids and even “Kidgits”
pets.
For
Simon’s national play area roll-out, Knight Avante
Playthemes created a life-size replica of this “Kidgits”
world. The center piece of each play area is the “Kidgits
Klubhouse,” a real life play house just like the one
pictured on the advertising materials. Inside the play area,
every graphic, visual and element is strictly tied to the
Kidgits theme. Various elements throughout direct kids and
parents to the Kidgits website, on-line games and discounts
at mall retailers.
As the
world’s largest shopping center REIT, it is no surprise
that Simon is leading the way in the evolution of children’s
play areas. Wisely, they have chosen to partner with Knight
Avante Playthemes, a “boutique” company out
of Park City, UT. Why not go with the “got kids?”
behemoth that seems to be pumping out play areas like jelly
beans?
The
answer is simple. With real estate worth billions of dollars,
a well-established national marketing campaign, and the
most well-respected name in the industry all on the line,
Simon simply could not have “just another play area.”
Knight
Avante Playthemes has a reputation for specializing in customization
and unique theming. Each Knight Avante play area is custom
designed to reflect the local flavors of the community in
which it will be located, the contributions of key sponsors,
and the unique desires and needs of each owner. Clearly,
Simon’s requirements were strict. They could not have
“any old playhouse” it had to be an exact replica
of the “Kidgits Klubhouse.” Knight Avante’s
10-Step Project
Approval & Fulfillment Process guaranteed
Simon’s satisfaction with the final product and prevented
any of those unwelcome “surprises.”
Preliminary
feedback from the first few locations indicates that these
one-of-a-kind play areas will be everything they are hyped
up to be and more. One mall manager enthusiastically commented,
“the play area is being used constantly night and
day and it seems to be the first place everyone wants to
visit in the mall. It is incredible. It has been an instant
success!”
Kudos
to Simon and Knight Avante for once again leading the way.
