Staying afloat in turbulent times with Dan Jasper

Staying afloat in turbulent times with Dan Jasper episode graphic Ready to find out how Mall of America, as a major retail destination consistently providing first-class experiences, while dealing with different COVID-19 challenges?

Guest:

Dan Jasper has served as the director of public relations at Mall of America for 17 years and has more than 20 years of PR and communications experience prior to that. Dan leads public relations, community relations, social media, storytelling, tourism, and the advanced service portal at the Mall of America. He is a key national spokesperson for the mall and also manages crisis communications and government affairs.

Five things you’ll learn from this episode:

How Mall of America, as a major retail destination consistently providing first-class experiences, dealt with different challenges brought by COVID-19 and went beyond the extra mile by over-communicating what is happening at Mall of America, and what you can expect when you come here so that you can plan ahead and have the best experience
How they handle protests fairly as private property holders and public figure appearances safely, and how Mall of America helped minority-owned businesses be successful and reach an enormous audience that they didn't reach before
Every year, the Mall of America has more than 40 million annual visitors; about 60% of those are drive market or local, and the rest are either across the nation or from other nations. Discover the best PR practices that can help businesses win COVID-19 challenges.
How Mall of America extended help to several impacted communities
Social media is more than just a marketing tool; it is indeed a relationship-building tool. When a brand doesn't have personality on social media, it's very hard for people to stay engaging and interesting. That's why you see not only small businesses who have fans raving about how good their products and services are, but they also have a little bit of an edge that makes them attractive to their community and makes it fun for their community to follow them. Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in corporate communications — almost like a robot in our responses — that we wonder why no one cares to follow us on social media. Learn the best social media practices from Dan Jasper, director of public relations at Mall of America.

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Quotables

"Go the extra mile when you're talking safety and all of the precautions in place. Go beyond what you think is necessary in terms of communicating with the guests. We really try to over-communicate what is happening at Mall of America — what you can expect when you come here — so that you can plan ahead and have the best experience." — Dan Jasper
“Every year we have more than 40 million annual visitors and about 60% of those are what we call drive market or local; the rest are either across the nation or from other nations, international travel coming here, and there's no way to reach all of those people.” — Dan Jasper
"We have a lot of partners in the community that are willing to reach out and help us secure this building. We had a lot of friends in the community that just showed support." — Dan Jasper
"We reached out to businesses that were impacted, schools — everyone we could think of with destroyed property — and extended our help. We specifically asked how we could help them as a mall. So, the first thing we did was we listened to impacted communities." — Dan Jasper
"We gave the minority-owned businesses very favorable leasing terms, which turned into this wonderful diversity-based incubator system for entrepreneurs and new businesses at a price point that they can afford and where they can be successful, and yet they can learn all these new skills and reach an enormous audience that they didn't reach before. So those are three of the ways that we worked our way through this really tragic period, and did it in a way to lead with our actions as opposed to our words." — Dan Jasper
“There have been a lot of demonstrations and protests at Mall of America. Years ago, we took this to the state supreme court, and they deemed that we're private property holders and that we have the right to not allow protests here, because a lot of groups think it's like a town square where anyone can do whatever they want.” — Dan Jasper

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About Dan Jasper

Dan Jasper has served as the amazing director of public relations at Mall of America for 17 years and has more than 20 years of PR and communications experience prior to that. Dan leads public relations, community relations, social media, storytelling, tourism, and the advanced service portal at the Mall of America. He is a key national spokesperson for the mall. He also manages crisis communications and government affairs.

Guest’s contact info and resources:

Additional resources

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On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands.
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About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

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