As a shopping center manager or marketing professional in 2025, you’re on the front lines of one of the most significant transformations this industry has ever seen. The traditional mall model has been completely reimagined, and your centers will no longer be primarily defined merely by their retail offerings. They’ve evolved into “third places,” social environments outside of home, which is the first place, and work, which is the second place. Third places are where people gather, connect and build community. Shopping centers today are becoming experiential destinations, technology showcases and IRL (in real life) hubs where friends meet up for live entertainment, pop-up events, great food and hands-on activities, making your center the go-to spot for memorable, shareable social time.
Malls Are Cool Again
Fueling this transformation is Generation Z. Having grown up in the digital age, younger consumers see online shopping as routine, not revolutionary. To them, the online shopping experience does not offer novelty. It is simply another mode of shopping, and they crave something more. CNBC reported in December that younger shoppers are rediscovering the value of in-person physical shopping experiences, and an ICSC study showed that in May 2018, 76% of global Gen Z shoppers believed brick-and-mortar stores provided a “more well-rounded and enjoyable shopping experience than shopping online. They’re drawn to spaces that offer novelty, authenticity and shareable moments. Gen Z is connected to these spaces through technology unlike any other generation. For younger shoppers, it’s not a matter of choosing between digital or physical. They use technologies, especially artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and voice assistants, to find, enhance and guide their in-person shopping experiences. That’s why it’s essential for shopping centers not only to understand how technology meshes with physical engagement but to use tools that can enhance these experiences.
As a then-Pacific Retail Capital Partners executive noted in ICSC’s Commerce + Communities Today in January: “You’re increasingly seeing this conscious effort to recapture and prioritize face-to-face interactions, with malls being cool again. It’s really being fueled by the digitally native generation, which sees novelty in anything pre-digital.”
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This shift is evident in today’s evolving tenant mix. We at Mall Maverick have seen a clear trend at through managing digital content for over 300 shopping centers across North America: Traditional retail no longer dominates. We notice that nearly half of new tenants being added within our platform are experiential or service-based, including boutique fitness studios, entertainment venues, co-working spaces and community services. The most successful properties have embraced this shift, becoming shop-and-stay destinations that combine retail, dining, entertainment and even residential offerings — encouraging longer visits and deeper community engagement.
Against this backdrop of transformation, your role has expanded far beyond traditional property management or marketing. You are now an experienced curator, a community builder, a data analyst and a technology integrator. Your success increasingly depends on your ability to blend physical and digital experiences while fostering authentic connections with your local community. The tools that worked five years ago no longer suffice. Today’s shopping centers need integrated solutions that bring together data, engagement, tenant management and community experiences, using advanced tools like AI-powered personalization.
Creating Seamless “Phygital” Experiences for Your Shoppers
In 2025, the line between digital and physical retail is increasingly blurred, making “phygital” strategies central to your marketing efforts. Your shoppers now expect seamless integration between online platforms and brick-and-mortar experiences. Mall Maverick’s experiential content management system, or CMS, meets this need by unifying mobile web, digital directories, social media, tenant listings, store promotions and email marketing in one centralized hub, ensuring consistent branding while reducing operational inefficiencies.
For example, where tenant hybrid shopping models like buy-online-pick-up-in-store, or BOPIS, and same-day delivery are key priorities, our Mall Maverick experiential CMS helps you capture additional opportunities by promoting dining, entertainment and events to BOPIS visitors, encouraging them to extend their stays and engage more deeply with your center.
“Mall Maverick’s experiential CMS data shows a strong link between digital strategy and results as content shifts toward events, experiences and community programming all managed within its own platform. ”
—Lee Jackson, senior vice president of JLL Digital Solutions
Integrating Technology for Enhanced Customer Engagement
Gartner’s 2024 CIO Agenda report found that 91% of retail information technology leaders identify AI as technology most likely to be implemented by 2026. Mall Maverick’s evolution into an experiential CMS includes AI capabilities that help your shopping center craft more discoverable content for search engines and digital assistants. Our integrated AI tools can suggest optimized copy and keywords that align with how today’s consumers search, whether they’re using Google or Alexa or asking Siri about “malls near me.” This is especially important for reaching Gen Z shoppers, who often begin their journey with voice commands or social media searches before visiting in person. As AI-driven discovery becomes the norm, structuring your content to be easily found and recommended by digital assistants is key to maintaining visibility and driving foot traffic to your center.
Additionally, Mall Maverick’s evolution includes robust social media integration capabilities to seamlessly connect platforms like TikTok and Instagram, allowing you to capitalize on user-generated content and influencer collaborations.
Streamlining Your Tenant Management
One of Mall Maverick’s core strengths has always been simplifying tenant management — now enhanced through its evolution into an experiential CMS. The platform offers centralized profiles for each store, including descriptions, hours, promotions and job postings, ensuring consistent, up-to-date information across all channels without manual duplication.
With tenant activation tools like retailer logins, your tenants can update their own content, promoting collaboration and reducing administrative workload. This feature not only boosts engagement but also drives traffic. One client managing over 10 shopping centers saw a 70% increase in page views and a 75% rise in visitors after adopting these tools, highlighting the platform’s impact on tenant success and customer reach.
Integrated Analytics and Future-Proofing Your Marketing Efforts
Mall Maverick’s experiential CMS offers scalability to accommodate your growing tenant portfolio and new digital trends like augmented reality shopping experiences. Integration with emerging technologies ensures your mall remains competitive in the evolving retail landscape, while built-in security features protect your sensitive data while ensuring compliance with industry standards, which is critical for maintaining trust among your stakeholders.
Our analytics integration provides full access to Google Analytics and detailed performance metrics, helping you understand which content activity channels drive the strongest audience response across multiple digital channels. Through our CMS, you can track everything from store promotion engagement to event page traffic, identifying key factors that influence visitor interest and tenant success. These insights empower you to make data-driven decisions in today’s era of community-focused, experience-driven centers.
By analyzing performance across promotions and events, you can refine your programming mix and tenant strategies. Our reporting tools also help quantify the impact of your marketing and community-building efforts, enabling you to demonstrate ROI to stakeholders and optimize future investments across both retail and experiential initiatives.
Photo by Iwona Castiello d'Antonio on Unsplash
Your Path Forward
As your shopping center continues to evolve into a social experience hub, Mall Maverick’s platform will continue to adapt and enhance its capabilities to meet your changing needs. We aim to be the best integrated tools that can address multiple challenges simultaneously. Mall Maverick’s evolution from a content management system to a comprehensive experiential CMS provides these tools, empowering you to navigate the changing retail landscape with confidence.
By centralizing websites, digital directories, social media integrations, analytics, retail tenant listings and email marketing in one platform, Mall Maverick positions itself as an indispensable tool as you strive to enhance operational efficiency, drive customer engagement and future-proof your strategies.
“The Mall Maverick marketing tool has really helped us manage marketing efforts for several centers in the same place. We can seamlessly advertise shopping center news, contests, promotions and so much more. Their team is consistently responsive, fast and accommodating when we have new ideas.”
—Margaret Cooper, retail director marketing at Cushman & Wakefield
In today’s competitive retail environment, your success depends on the ability to collect, analyze and act on customer data while blending digital and physical experiences. Mall Maverick helps you turn these demands into opportunities for innovation, positioning your center as a destination for connection, not just commerce.
Mall Maverick represents the future of shopping center marketing — where data drives decisions, digital and physical merge seamlessly and your property thrives as a modern-day community hub. Follow us on LinkedIn or contact us today for a demo.