The Summit campaign takes the long view

Dave Childs, assistant county manger for the Washoe County government, asked Julie Skow of the county's staff a few days ago if she knew of any good places to order sandwiches for a lunchtime meeting.

Instead of merely offering a suggestion to Childs, Skow offered to handle the lunch order herself.

A relieved Childs handed over a Karma Card from The Summit shopping center; a delighted Skow was thrilled.

The story is music to the ears of Doug Schneider, vice president of marketing for Bayer Properties, owner of the south Reno lifestyle center.

At a time when retail marketing pounds away at price and value, Bayer Properties decided to take a longer view toward its marketing of The Summit.

Working with The Glenn Group, a Reno-based marketing agency, The Summit this summer developed a campaign dubbed "Kindness is Your Currency."

Businesses and nonprofits were enlisted to reward employees and volunteers who did good deeds.

The Karma Cards provided 15 percent discounts at Dillards, an anchor of The Summit, and entered recipients into a drawing for a total of $5,000 in gift cards to The Summit.

But as the campaign unfolded, the discounts and the drawing proved a minor motivation for participants.

More important was the opportunity to recognize people who do good, participating groups say.

"We were able to let them know that what they do is appreciated," says Grady Tarbutton, senior services director for the county government.

And recognition is all the more important during the recession, says Stephanie McCaffrey of NV Energy.

"It's good to spread some cheer," says McCaffrey. Staff of the utility's Reno office recognized co-workers with Karma Cards, and NV Energy collected stories about employees' kind acts for internal publication.

Schneider says the campaign wasn't designed to generate a short-term sales boost for The Summit. In fact, he says, the image-building campaign may have gained extra attention simply because it was so different from the price-oriented ad campaigns that fill publications and the airwaves.

As Bayer Properties and The Glenn Group staffs developed ideas, he says they asked, "How do we engage with the community? How do we further build our relationship with the community?"

The Glenn Group developed both traditional and guerrilla advertising support for the campaign. It purchased print, broadcast and billboard advertising. It launched a Web page, promoted the campaign through Twitter and Facebook and sent email blasts.

Less traditionally, the agency hired a man on the street who asked passersby to be recorded on video as they undertook tasks passing out stickers reading "Kindness is Courageous" at a Reno Aces game, for instance in exchange for Karma Cards. The videos were uploaded to Kindnessisyourcurrency.com.

Bayer Properties considers the "Kindness is Your Currency" program so successful that's it's considering similar campaigns at other centers it owns across the United States.