The Ministry of Common Sense is (almost) here : Jan 2021
Dubai, Arabian desert. Outside it’s a blistering 108 degrees. You have a full ski-suit on, gloves, and ear-warmers. But you’re not outside, of course. You’re in the Mall of the Emirates. A sprawling, 2,400,000 square foot, multi-level shopping mall that boasts more than 630 retail outlets, 7,900 parking stalls, over 100 restaurants and cafes, and a 5-star hotel.
And the world’s largest indoor snow park, including Ski Dubai – the first indoor ski facility in the Middle East. Which is where you are.
Today you will undoubtedly recognize who is behind the Mall of the Emirates. Majid Al Futtaim. Now one of the world’s largest operators of malls, theme-parks, hotels, supermarkets, cinemas, residential communities and credit card companies . Oh, and a giant climate control company. (A Middle East staple.)
Suffice to say Majid Al Futtaim is a robust, highly diversified group which has, over the last 15 years, grown into one of the Middle East’s predominant enterprises. Before 2015 – however – you might’ve been forgiven for never having heard the name.
You probably wouldn’t have known that your visit to a VOX Cinema, Carrefour supermarket, LEGOLAND, even the residential complex you live in, in fact any interaction with any one of their hundreds of brands, was owned and operated by a holding company called Majid Al Futtaim.
The brief to Lindstrom Company was as ambitious as it was very simple. Engineer comprehensive brand alignment, with a consequential, quantifiable elevation of brand awareness.
It took two years, but we were able to synchronize close to one million touch points across the group, aligning every conceivable consumer experience under one umbrella brand identity – and a new, specially designed brand marque, the over-arching “M”. Majid Al Futtaim. We created the conditions for a singular customer journey across every brand in the entire enterprise. Provide every customer a seamless, flawless, real-time experience, across the entire operation.
Daunting, but as we were to discover, entirely do-able.
The success of this project can be measured in the numbers. Since 2015 Majid Al Futtaim has experienced double digit growth every year. The group’s awareness – and its myriad of operations – has nearly doubled. The synergy between its businesses: tripled.
A love affair with LEGOLAND has spun off a vast number of customers now buying homes in one of the group’s many residential parks, with the knock-on effect that these same customers choose to visit any one of the group’s VOX cinemas, as well as a Magic Planet theme park, naturally.
Majid Al Futtaim began to notice how regular Carrefour customers began to repeatedly choose to shop at one of the group’s many malls – in preference to competing locations.
With triple improvement of the footfall – and a remarkable improvement in NPS – Majid Al Futtaim has today secured the #1 brand position in the Middle East region.
