In 2002, I landed up in Dubai and worked for the Landmark Group as their Group Marketing Manager. I was in charge of the Oasis Centre, a mall in Jumeirah. The mall had a tenant profile that was skewed towards women with baby Shoppe, Splash, ShoeMart, Lifestyle, Home Centre , Areej and the Kids Play Zones all having a strong female clientele. For the festive month of February that year,(we had the Valentine's Day and Id comming in the same month) we ran a promotion called the " Fantastic February Festival".
We ran a campaign around the movie "What Women Want" which was relatively popular in the video libraries in Dubai. A radio channel ran this contest on the movie which asked questions on what characters in the movie shopped for and whether they could find in Oasis and if so in which outlet? It was a huge hit.
Radio spots for this contest were written by me.
The first line from the song,"Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguilera
"What a girl wants ... what a girl needs .... "
MVO: "To know the answer to that .. we suggest a trip to the Oasis Centre this February and make it a Fantastic February for your family. Trust us, at the Oasis Centre we really know what women want !"
Radio Spot 2:
The line from the Spice Girls first hit "Wannabe"
I wanna I wanna ....I wanna
MVO:" For all that she really wants we have the Oasis Centre. Visit us and make this a fantastic February!"
For a more mature radio station we used the Bee Gees track "How deep is your Love".
Song: "How deep is your love?, I really need to know.."
MVO: "We recommend a visit to the Oasis Centre this February for shopping and we assure you she will know. At Oasis centre we really know what women want".
Sometimes great work has to content with envy. This campaign was done with the art director of an agency called IKON. The day this campaign appeared, a surreptitious complaint was made to the owner, by one of the agencies that unsuccessfully pitched for this business, that it was a "waste of money"!! This resulted in me doing a day after recall test at the mall followed up with a Forced Exposure Test to understand how the campaign was decoded!! Problem solved! There was a decision to carry this ad on the cover of the newsletter sent to loyalty club members of the malls across GCC and an advice to run the contest in their markets!!
The Lifestyle ad was done specifically for Valentines Day. Lifestyle in Dubai was a novelty store and not the flagship retail format as in India. It was aimed at women and had a lot of cospmetics, bric a brac, few accessories for the home and self, a music station, etc. I got this ad through after a lot of trouble. the first creative brief sent to the agency was not read (or seen) by the Creative Director and when I was presented a crazy layout with a matchbox and a headline which suggested that the heat be turned up this Valentine, I blew a fuse !!.The second attempt was on brief and the layout, great!!
Copy: "Reveal your true colours this Valentine. Throw a hint with a ring, get naughty with a lipstick, play it coy with a pair of sunglasses... what follows is best kept a secret."
The Jungle Food Court was a jungle themed restaurant which was an instant hit with children. There were live parrots which simply bowled the kids over! The ad in itself was a Disney styled one and done by Sarosh Sheriff, who was a fabulous Art Director and who ran an agency, aptly named "Turning Heads". To promote this, we also used a unique and unconventional in- shop device. The entrance had an easel and a piece of canvas which had the pug marks of a tiger printed on it as if it had left the painting. The pug marks continued down the easel stand and onto the floor. Pugmarks on the floor led to the Jungle Food Court. Kids ended up trying to stand on the pug marks and following it till they reached the Jungle Food Court!!
CYBORG was a teen entertainment centre with bowling alleys, internet games and a water and soft drinks bar with music and a dance floor. Alcohol was not allowed. This rode on the insight that the entertainment centres in Dubai were focused on young adults or families and the teenager never had a place to be himself and which played his kind of music and had his kind of crowd. There were few and they were doing huge business and patronized by the neighbourhood kids. None of them had the space CYBORG had or the range of entertainment options that was planned.My major contributions were in media. Landmark ran a very successful CRM program through a customer club where loyal customers got points and consequent discounts on repeat purchases. We used this to study media consumption habits. This resulted in data driven negotiations with publications and radio channels. I was also able to put together a business model for starting a magazine from the Group which would have a pan GCC footprint and which would automatically be the largest circulating publication if it was sent to all the club members of Landmark across GCC!!. With an editorial that allowed showcasing of apparel, footwear, durables, home decor products and on an assumption that at least the key suppliers of the group advertised , it could easily cross its payback period withing a matter of months and provide a healthy ROI within its first 6 months!! I could not oversee the implementation of this plan and at the time of leaving we were negotiating with content providers who ran similar magazines for local Dubai malls like Burjuman and City Centre. In fact it should be mentioned here that the NRS for UKin 1999-2000, indicated that it was retail magazine titles that had the highest readership!!!
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*Bhima
*Bhima was a jeweller in Trivandrum. Jewellery advertising in Kerala tended to focus on models draped in gold like elephants at the Pooram. One ad looked exactly like the other. Research among regulars at Bhima indicated that there was a loyalty to the store due to the fact that gold purchased here was found to be genuine. This trust in the outlet saw customers from granmothers to mothers to daughters claiming that their wedding trousseau was purchased from BHIMA. This led to the ad campaign focussing on purity.
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