Piercing Pagoda Has a New Name, but the Mall Is Still Home

If you grew up in an American suburb during the 1980s, there is no way you don’t know Piercing Pagoda. Maybe you never got your ears pierced there, but odds are you saw your share of other mullet-capped teens getting it done at that beige mall kiosk, just down from Waldenbooks, KB Toys and Chess King. As incentives went, Piercing Pagoda’s was tough to beat: Buy any pair of earrings and the piercing was on the house. Now for the surprising part—two, actually. First, though shopping malls have been disappearing for over a decade, Piercing Pagoda is still around. In fact, it was recently rebranded as Banter by Piercing Pagoda, but more on that later. Second, if your ears were indeed pierced at the pagoda, you have Dwight D. Eisenhower to thank for it. Well, more or less. In 1956, Eisenhower created the Sister Cities program, a nonprofit group that paired American cities with overseas counterparts to “build the solid structure of world peace.” Several years later, Bethlehem, Pa., found itself a sister in the Japanese city of Tondabayashi. This friendship proved touching to a local couple named Bernard and Bertha Cohen, who ran Finkelstein's Jewelers. In 1969, shortly after the Whitehall Mall opened east of Bethlehem, the Cohens began offering ear piercings and inexpensive jewelry from a little kiosk they leased. As a nod to Tondabayashi (and Japanese culture generally) they called it Piercing Pagoda. By the late 1980s, the little stands had grown to some 270 locations nationally. Three decades later, the brand boasts some 500 locations and is still a believer in America’s malls. The mission to sell affordably priced 10-14 karat gold earrings, charms and bracelets, “those things still remain at the core of what we’re trying to do,” president Kecia Caffie told Adweek. But as the mall kids of the 1980s are now having kids of their own, “we found out that the name Piercing Pagoda was not resonating well,” she continued. The result is Banter by Piercing Pagoda. It’s a mouthful of a name that Caffie admits may take some time to catch on. “When you say ‘Banter,’ does your brain go to jewelry? No,” she said, but “the thing we really liked about it is a conversation between people—high-energy banter. And then, through marketing, you start tying that to jewelry.” Fortunately, the brand’s in no rush to do that. It is, after all, part of Signet Jewelers, the world’s largest retailer of diamond jewelry whose 2,800-store empire includes Kay Jewelers and Zales and whose sales hit $2.5 billion this year. And so the pagoda still stands at your local mall, throwing in a piercing with the purchase of earrings. Even if Chess King is no longer nearby. Is there a future in the mall? Caffie is an optimistic brand president, but not a naïve one. She’s aware of the research, which predicts that 25% of American malls will be gone in the next five years. But America still has over a thousand malls left, and not all of them are on the ropes. “Occupancy is down, but our business is fabulous," she said. Even so, “clearly our real estate strategy has had to shift because of what's happening with the mall now.” So the company has been developing stores that can fit into outdoor shopping centers. With more square footage, it’s also expanding into body piercing (though still above the neck). Caffie is even looking to the American downtown—you know, that place malls killed off half a century ago? “Main Street is coming back,” she added. The golden oldie Mention Piercing Pagoda to middle-aged consumers, and it'll invariably conjure images of the shopping mall's golden age (1, 2) when the kiosks joined the multiplex and food court. Today, the rebranded company is sporting edgier marketing (3) along with its new name (4) and an expanded range of jewelry that will include belly bars (5) at in-line locations.

Perspective

Piercing Pagoda Has a New Name, but Its Main Service Is Still Free With Purchase

The Japan-inspired mall mainstay knew it needed to change with the times

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara