The Challenge

I work as a marketing manager for a shopping mall in Abu Dhabi- the capital of the United Arab  Emirates. The first project that I had to execute as part of this role was to develop the concept  for the launch campaign of the mall.

During the discovery phase, we identified the different stakeholders for the mall described as  per below:

Develop the advertising campaign for the launch of a shopping mall

The architect  and designer  for this mall

The tenants  (shops)- further  categorized into  small, medium,  and big size  tenants

The shoppers – further  categorized as per  geographic and  demographic  segmentation

The landlord (mall  management)

The objective of this phase was to understand how different stakeholders perceive their  shopping-mall experience and their expectations out of visiting any mall. The tool that we used  in this phase was the visualization tool.

Visualization is about visual thinking. It is about the things we write, the images we use, the graphs, charts, videos, and photography. Visualization is a very important part in the design thinking process for innovation. It is an efficient tool that can be used in the exploration phase to understand people’s perception of things, and there interpretation of simple and complex experiences and description of future concepts.

In the visualization phase, people from different target segments are asked to draw a certain experience or trace a certain product. These drawings are then used to identify patterns, then analyzed to define new concepts and prototypes.

Selection: “Visualization tool”

Application

We visited a selected sample of different stakeholders and we requested them to draw their perception of the mall experience and describe the journey of visiting a shopping mall illustrating the below:

1) Whether they go individually or with a group or family

2) Their shopping approach

3) The entertainment activities they prefer (restaurants, coffee shops, kids activities, cinema, etc.)

Insights

All the drawings were compiled and we were able to identify the main highlights of a mall visit from different perspectives.

Availability of  parking & Spacious  parking slots

Convenient  location &  easy access

Dining options:  restaurants  and coffee  shops

Variety of  shops

Entertainment  activities for kids  and adults (kids  park, cinema,  etc.)

There was a great lesson learnt from this approach. All the involved stakeholders gave constructive feedback that contributed to the success of our launch campaign. For future tasks, I would still recommend using this tool in the discovery phase, since customers may draw and express important insights through drawings and illustrations better than with words

Approach

Author: Maria Avila Date: July 11th, 2019

Based on the above pillars, we were able to define the value proposition for the mall and we were able to come up with the concept for the launch campaign:

“We brought the world to you”

