Advice and Opinion

A smarter shopping experience in the digital era

Shopping Mall

Creating smarter malls which amplify the shopper experience and work to create shopper connections is no easy feat. Primedia Unlimited Malls have introduced twelve products that strive for simplicity and technological advancement in malls, which benefit the shopper, retailer, mall owner and advertiser.

South African shoppers require more from their mall experiences as the majority of consumers still enjoy the physical shopping experience. Humans are social creatures, and with the technological age we live in, we still crave interaction and engagement of the senses.

In today’s world, the most important currency anybody can have is ‘time’, and PU Malls understand that all too well. Shoppers seek solutions that provides them with convenience, easy access to information and a simplified shopper journey.

Leading in creating unmatched value through smart shopper connections meant a thorough analysis of the current market landscape, coupled with heavy research into the typical South African shopper habits and segmentation of information specific to a particular location and mall.

“Establishing a common purpose with our various stakeholders and utilising data analytics and insights, empowers us to provide an integrated solution through our four areas of expertise; media, activations, shopper marketing and digital, as the core enabler for all of these platforms. Digital gives shoppers a wider choice on how to engage with brands more intuitively,” shares Molefi Moloantoa, PU Malls CEO.

“Having recently undergone a company re-brand that came about through an introspective exercise evaluating how relevant we are in meeting the needs of our future stakeholders, we shifted our focus to become even more shopper centric.”

Below, Primedia breaks down their twelve new innovative and advanced products with an everyday shopper journey to illustrate just how the above can be achieved:

Candice heads to nearest mall to find the perfect birthday gift for her colleague Rego. Candice passes a billboard by the mall entrance advertising a newly opened bath and body store. Curious about their product offering, she subsequently passes a Mall Tv unit and sees an advertisement for the new bath and body store promoting their opening specials. This is an example of the Smart Network offering, which has tailored and affordable advertising options for small businesses.

Her boyfriend Theo, who is also at the mall, stumbles upon a larger than life size 3D standee version of a Nespresso pod, he also notices the aroma of coffee in the air. This is purposefully executed using a scent dispenser to enhance the shopper’s experience utilising more sensory touch points. The enticing aroma coupled with the Nespresso standee reminds Theo that he needs to top up on pods and he proceeds to the store and makes a purchase.

After a successful morning of shopping, Candice is on her way to the meet up with Theo to catch a movie and grab a bite to eat. She uses the nearest Digital Store Directory unit which with its latest software, allows users to interact with the screen as you would your mobile phone (touch, scroll and rotate), to view the restaurant menus. Candice sees that Simply Asia has a 2 for 1 promotion which prompts her to consider Simply Asia for lunch.

She scrolls through the events happening within the centre and notices that there’s an activation for the Kingsman Golden Circle movie they are about to watch. The activation has involved a number of retailers and brands giving away great prizes to promote the movie. This is a great example of brand companionship through the ideation process, which has utilised the combined budget, owned assets of multiple partners and brands in the mall space to execute experiential activations on an amplified scale. The event information states that by simply answering a few questions at the activation, Candice will receive a complimentary movie voucher.

From a brand and advertiser perspective, Smart Lead and Smart Track assist the advertiser to calculate conversion and ROI on promotions and activations. Smart Track offers an easy way to measure and track audience participation by providing more accurate information on unique visitors, repeat visitors and dwell time. Smart Lead easily captures and segments new potential customer information and tracks any further engagement opportunities of the customer with the brand. Candice arrives at the activation and is greeted by the friendly and enthusiastic on stand promoters. After taking Candice through five simple questions via Smart Lead, the promoter submits her answers and the system automatically sends her the promised free movie voucher that she can redeem at the cinema. The Redeemables system is geared up to work with most brands already, which allows brands to communicate with their customers in an engaging, targeted manner.

Candice’s shopping experience is but one example of how these new products have enhanced her mall journey through smart shopper connections. Delving further into targeted marketing, PU Malls offer Cam Track, an interactive technology that enables the capturing of anonymous shopper demographics through the use of a camera. Imagine being able to tailor your content to the audience according to their mood, age, gender and even the weather.

The new PUM Wi-Fi offering is an added value proposition for any sponsor brand. The free Wi-Fi is accessed through the landing page which can be customised to the brand&#39;s identity to further build brand equity. Most importantly, the exciting benefits of this offering is capturing of insightful data analytics, pertinent to the objectives of a campaign.

Add on Skyfii, a new digital system that provides powerful data analytics on shopper behaviour from WiFi, foot counters, CCTV, web, social, point of sale to unlock meaningful insights for venue performance reporting.

As the experts in smart shopper connections, PU Malls has developed a unique data led segmentation tool, the Smart Mall Matrix, which was developed out of a need to identify the “Best Mall Fit” for each unique advertiser and brand campaign. Powered by the multi-layered Smart Dashboard, which serves as ‘one source of truth,’ this tool employs data variables and algorithms to generate an intensity index to identify shopping malls that will generate the best return on investment for each specific brand campaign.

PU Malls have cleverly covered the entire mall landscape into one that is smart and can capture and provide vital information through these various technologies, which work together to complement and enhance a unified shopper experience.