Background

Dubai Mall is another gem from Emaar Properties, a global provider of premier lifestyles. Touted as the world's largest mall with a total area of 12.1 billion square feet and a retail area of 5.9 billion square feet—Dubai Mall is located in the heart of the prestigious downtown Burj Dubai and is a premier lifestyle destination for shopping and entertainment worldwide.

From world-class dining, entertainment and cultural attractions, to the world's largest Aquarium, Dubai Mall has it all. Other key attractions include the Gold Souk, Kidzania, Fashion Avenue, Fountain Oasis, an Olympic-size Ice Rink and a 22-cinema complex.

Flip Media's expertise in delivering end-to-end online solutions impelled Emaar Malls Group to approach us.

The Challenge

Since The Dubai Mall offers literally anything one can desire, the biggest challenge was to communicate 'everything’ to ‘everyone’ without losing the impact.

The task at hand was to create an interactive platform that would not only showcase the mall's attraction (1200+ shops) but also keep the audience informed and updated with latest offerings.

From devising the visual tone to building the easy-to-use CMS—need of the hour was an information heavy CMS website.

The Solution

Flip initiated the project by creating an online branding strategy comprising of visual tone, online branding, user friendly and information comprehensive IA (Internal Architecture) and easy to use Content Management System for internal mall staff to update i.e., can be updated by the Marketing Manager on a daily basis.

From design perspective the look & feel of the website was kept suave yet Modern. In the homepage a space was solely dedicated for online branding and a  "verb-driven" (shop, dine, entertain, stay) search box was strategically positioned for easy navigation. To give the user a close to real experience, Flip built and designed a highly efficient store locater. The space specific store locator not only provides a comprehensive view but also allows the admin to update relevant information and details - like 'empty spaces' and 'what's where'.

This is what Flip did:

The entire mall was divided into a series of 'floors' and each floor was defined by a "floorplan" provided by Emaar Retail Engineering. On every floor, a box was drawn around each shop called as the 'retail space'. Content was then created on the CMS, called shop—which was assigned to a retail space.

Why did we do this?

Normally an agency would require to update a flash map but for 1200 shops this would have been a never-ending work. Another feature allows  breaking down a large retail space into two shops / spaces. Plus, the CMS allows TDM staff to do this without any external help.

While the content and application allowed each brand to leverage themselves with their own unique content (image gallery and videos), offers and events—Newsletter module allows communication with Dubai Shopping Mall lovers.

Flip also designed a shop locator kiosk inclusive of the graphics and the IA flow. This kiosk enables the user to locate stores in a jiffy. The main purpose for designing a scalable website was to provide a platform for future growth and the chosen architecture was Flip's CMS.

The Results

Flip's hard work didn't go unnoticed. The Dubai Shopping Mall's website proved to be world's first fully self-managed store locator application. With extranet like features it allows the TDM staff and shop owners content moderation and content management.

The user friendly website allows the user to discover the mall without actually visiting it. A website that helps you plan a quick entry and even quicker exit - that too at the world's largest shopping mall.