Naughty or Nice Greetings Await Shoppers

In industrious Illinois, the incentive to start shopping early Friday morning is a free 4 a.m. aerobics class. In laid-back L.A., they’ll be lollygagging on big pillows at 9 a.m., drinking coffee with “Hunky Santa.”

Once again, merchants are scrambling to attract shoppers on the traditional kickoff day of the holiday shopping season by creating a little buzz. Target Corp., for example, hopes to lure buyers to its post-Thanksgiving sale by offering a mock menacing wake-up call from Ice-T.

“Get your lazy butt up,” says the rapper-turned-actor in a promotion on the company’s website. Options for prerecorded wake-up calls include a kittenish message from model Heidi Klum, the meanderings of stoner comic Cheech Marin and a crowing rooster named Dennis.

“They’re representations of key figures in our pop culture that a diversity of our guests can relate to,” said Target spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear, who is partial to Ice-T’s surly shout-out to shoppers.

Going for a more warm and fuzzy vibe is the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, where the first shoppers in the door at 9 a.m. will be served breakfast and coffee in a special lounge with plump pillow chairs. Welcoming them will be Hunky Santa, a buffed version of the famous fat man.

The promotion is the local interpretation of a Taubman Centers Inc. program to get shoppers spending early in the day. At Taubman’s Schaumburg, Ill., property, dancing Santas will lead aerobics when the Woodfield mall opens at 4 a.m. And shoppers in Plano, Texas, can dress down for a pajama party at dawn.

“It’s a very competitive morning with a lot of sales going on,” said Taubman spokeswoman Karen MacDonald. “We wanted to give shoppers reasons to come to our malls.”