As Shanghai heats up and the school season winds down, two of the city’s main retail destinations – the Jing’an Kerry Centre and Pudong Kerry Parkside – are betting on experience as the element that will bring in the summer punters. They’ve recruited the cast of fish from SpongeBob SquarePants to deliver it. What’s impossible to miss about the campaign is that SpongeBob himself isn’t part of it, and the ways they’ve splashed their collaboration about Shanghai streets.
They’re calling this collaboration The Fish-tastic Summer: Residents of Bikini Bottom. It’s a national first, in that no-one in China has dropped SpongeBob to focus on his friends in an ad campaign before. But there’s a reason the protagonist wasn’t invited to the party. These ‘background fish’ have become memes among Chinese netizens for embodying workplace burnout and the desire to moyu (摸鱼) or slack off.
Running across both malls, the activation transforms the commercial spaces into immersive destinations designed to drive footfall during one of retail’s busiest periods.
Shopping destinations increasingly compete with large activations
Rather than replicating the same experience, the two malls have split the concept into complementary themes. Jing’an Kerry Centre targets young office workers with Summer Slacker Town. Giant background fish are draped across walkways, sullenly wait for buses, grumpily mow the lawn. Every one of them looks suitably burnt out.
Across the river, Pudong Kerry Parkside has taken a more family-focused approach. Its Summer Fish Playground features a five-metre-tall SpongeBob and Patrick sandcastle, a beach cinema and interactive play areas, positioning the mall as a holiday destination for parents and children during the school break.
The Dao view: The Kerry Centre’s background fish are an expression of retail’s newest play
What the two activations do have in common is a range of interactive games, limited edition merch and food and drink options. You could also say they share in a China retail marketing trend: that shopping destinations increasingly compete with large activations like this, rather than simply relying on tenants to get shoppers through the door.
