“Marketing plays a key role”

ACROSS: How important is marketing for a mixed-use-property like Eurovea?

HAMMER: Before the opening and during the opening period marketing communication was very different from what it is now. At first it was important to build a brand for a new, very unique project and later it was crucial to separate marketing communications to achieve more specific goals. Every component (shopping, hotel, office buildings, and apartments) has a slightly different target group and therefore needs different communication channels with different tactics and messages. As in every project we still continue – beside apartments, which are sold out – with strategic marketing, where we apply different marketing communication strategies (B2B and B2C). Generally, we can say that the office and retail market in Slovakia is quite saturated and marketing plays a key role in our daily life. We are using a combination of above-the-line and below-the-line activities to achieve the best marketing mix for the respective customer group.

ACROSS: Which synergies – where marketing is concerned – result from the different types of use?

HAMMER: Common communication was strong and helped to build brand awareness. The target groups for luxury riverfront apartments, A-category offices, and 5-star hotels are similar, but the target group for malls is very different. Shopping centers in this situation can be perceived by customers as having too much of a “luxury” image. In such a project the most vital marketing communicator is obviously the retail element. The other components of the development benefit strongly from our retail marketing activities.

ACROSS: What is the positioning of Eurovea?

HAMMER: The positioning has to be set at the beginning of a project. Eurovea is a new modern city quarter with a complex offer for all inhabitants and visitors of Bratislava. This concept was very successful and generated brand awareness for every component of the project. Award-winning architecture, green landscaping, and riverfront redevelopment was unusual at the time of the project’s opening. Today we use these features more for PR communications than marketing communications.

ACROSS: Which role does Eurovea play as a mixed-use-property in the Slovakian retail landscape?

HAMMER: It is a unique shopping destination and the perfect place for international brands to enter the Slovakian market. Its integral parts include a riverside park with a promenade and a square with a fountain. Eurovea changed not only the embankment area along the Danube, but also the more general concepts of living, working, and shopping in the Slovak capital. The first component to open was the 5-star Sheraton Hotel Bratislava, which added depth and a new level of quality to the city’s hospitality offering. But it was the shopping mall and entertainment center of Eurovea that had the most profound impact, as its goal was to provide the sort of downtown, high street shopping experience that the city simply doesn’t offer.