The way to a consumer’s heart is through his/her stomach – Shopping Mall advertising

Growel's 101 Mall

Shopping malls have brought about a significant change the behaviour of consumer in Indian cities. Malls are not just about shopping; these have become entertainment destinations, places where you can socialize, eat, meet people, and generally spend time in air-conditioned comfort. I have also seen people having business meetings at food courts and it is not uncommon to see people working on their laptops. The food courts in major malls offer a variety of choices.

Magnet Mall

Phoenix Market City

Advertisements of most malls are quite similar in the information they give out, they usually talk about the variety of things they have to offer such as shopping, entertainment, movie theatres and food. You also see ads of malls during festival time announcing special offers and discounts or when they happen to hold special events at their premises.

 There is one mall located in the northern suburbs of Mumbai (Bombay) which has a different story to tell, their selling point in their ads is the food that is served at the mall’s restaurants, cafés and food court – ‘SHOPPING TO BAHANA HAI, KUCH ACCHA KHANA HAI (Shopping is just an excuse, eat some good food)’ says the copy of their press ads; this I found quite interesting. This mall is called Growel's 101 Mall, you do get a lot of choice in the food that is available here (I have eaten here several times) and the quality is also good, but I can’t say that the variety and quality of food is unmatched by other malls. There are other malls in suburban Mumbai (Bombay) which can more or less match what Growel's 101 Mall has to offer in terms of food. However I think it is clever on their part to make food the centre of interest, the mall has a number of stores selling well-known brands of different product categories; it also has a large supermarket and multiplex cinema. 

What I found noteworthy is that Growel's 101 Mall has not fallen to the temptation of talking about everything it has to offer like other malls do which is perhaps the ‘safe’ thing to do in advertising for shopping malls; it has sensibly selected food as its strength and selling point and has been single-mindedly trying to attract customer footfalls through it. The ads are creatively designed and are surely eye-catching and appeals to the foodie in you; the copy has been kept to a bare minimum with the logos of the food outlets at the bottom, the ad does not have a cluttered look. To my mind this idea of using food offerings to differentiate Growel's 101 Mall from the other malls is a pretty good and bold one; perhaps the way to a consumer’s heart is through his/her stomach.