This isn’t your grandmother’s holiday shopping season.

One indication is that mall owner Westfield is running a sweepstakes this week for a pair of tickets to see Kathy Griffin, the comedienne who gained notoriety for, among other things, using an off-color remark about Jesus at the Emmy Awards. Customers don’t have to purchase anything to participate and can drop off their entry forms in person at a Westfield mall, fill them out on Westfield’s website or mail them in.

Last Sunday, Griffin also made an appearance at Westfield Culver City in California, taking pictures with 150 Westfield shoppers. Three of the mall’s Facebook fans won backstage visits with the performer prior to the event.

In an effort to drive up sales for the all important November/December/January period, mall owners are going all out with marketing campaigns, combining social media promotions with giveaways and smartphone apps with charity efforts, all aimed at making holiday shopping easier, cheaper, more meaningful and more fun.

Among this year’s shoppers “there is definitely a push for value and feeling like you are getting a good price for the products you are [buying],” says Alan Cohen, executive vice president of marketing with Westfield. “But I would also say, with the economic turbulence we’ve had this year, there a sense of people being very happy to be out in the whole social experience and looking to have fun at the mall.”

Marketing strategies

Mall operators are using Facebook, Twitter and mobile apps to make shopping as convenient as possible. Owners ranging from Westfield to PREIT to Glimcher Realty Trust are posting fresh retailer promotions and Santa appearance schedules on center web sites and Facebook pages, so shoppers know in advance when to visit the mall to get the most out of the experience.

Plus, posts on social media sites can be used to drive extra traffic to the mall. Columbus, Ohio-based Glimcher Realty Trust, for instance, posts notices about its Santa Surprise Patrol appearances on participating properties’ Facebook pages. Santa Surprise Patrol involves the mall’s managers offering shoppers at the mall gift cards ranging in value from $25 to $500 in a blind drawing. While the practice started several years ago at a few Glimcher malls, this year more than half of the company’s malls are running the promotion, according to Jessi Fausett, the REIT’s director of marketing.

What’s important to shoppers this year is “anything that makes it convenient and easy for them to find out what’s happening, where the sales are,” says Judy Trias, vice president of retail marketing with PREIT, a Philadelphia-based REIT.

As proof, Trias notes that downloads for PREIT’s smartphone app, which recently became available for Android phones, started rising exponentially in December. From June, when the app was first launched, through November, PREIT saw on average 100 downloads a week. Two weeks ago, the number rose to 400. Last week, it was 900.

Continue reading at RetailTraffic.com.