Entering China
◎ Compared with the elitism of other first-tier cities and wrapped in big names, in the minds of local young people in Guangzhou, “pop culture” is more respected.
Written by Becca Leung
How to create a shopping mall that is popular with young people?
Ten years ago, this problem was probably simple – the introduction of chain clothing, a few fast fashion, and then a whole floor of catering, and a cinema, video game city, KTV on the upper floor – large and complete, enough to meet the leisure and entertainment needs of young people for a day.
But times are changing, and such a model obviously doesn’t work.
The cookie-cutter big box shopping mall is no longer the first choice for young people to go offline, but instead has an old city block with the owner’s brand, a commercial complex rich in exhibitions and community activities, and even a cultural and creative park transformed from an old factory……
A new set of business methodologies is emerging:
From filling demand to creating demand, project operators must not only be able to “install” the brand, but also let go of role boundaries and be deeply involved in scene creation and content production.
However, in a place where the business atmosphere is most vibrant, it is difficult to perceive the changes of the times, and the shopping malls that fall here are not so “old”.
Guangzhou Tianhe Road is such a business district. From the establishment of Guangzhou Teemall nearly 30 years ago, which pushed the city into the era of shopping malls, to more than 10 years ago, when Taikoo Hui brought a number of luxury brands to the South China market for the first time, Tianhe Road, which is more than a kilometer long, has gradually “expanded” into the road with the highest density of shopping malls in the country, welcoming new people and new things every day.
Each project on this road has successively opened up and run in a path that is most suitable for itself, pursuing co-prosperity and symbiosis, and complementarity is greater than competition.
Wanling Group is one of the first Hong Kong companies to pay attention to and enter the mainland market after the opening up of Chinese mainland, Wanling Hui on Tianhe Road has the advantages of multi-format complex, in addition to shopping malls, it also includes Guangzhou’s first Fraser Glory five-star serviced apartment, as well as high-standard serviced residences King’s Landing International.
The core of pop culture + localization attempt
The counterattack road of “little transparent”.
In the past 14 years, Wanling Hui has gone through different stages of evolution with the business district in the process of brand portfolio changes, and has become more and more focused and younger from the “small transparency” in the eyes of most people, and has gradually become the shopping mall with the highest “concentration” of hipsters in Tianhe Road.
In fact, for an offline business entity, there is no shortcut to get rid of the vague personality and label it that is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Since its opening in 2010, Wanling Hui has also experienced a long period of positioning adjustment in cultivating its own trend core:
Before 2015, in that era when OL “Banwei” was about equal to fashion, the entry of brands such as ZARA, Massimo Dutti, and MANGO injected the urban sense that the public white-collar workers were chasing in that era.
In the 1.0 stage of the opening of Wanling Hui, the first store of ZARA HOME in China and the first flagship store of ZARA Guangzhou were introduced in the early stage of opening, and the business dividend was seized with fast fashion.
After the first five years, Wanling Hui, which could not accept the definition of “mass” or even “ordinary”, took the first step to make a comeback.
From 2016 to 2022, in the passenger flow army of Tianhe Road, it found a subdivision – youth and trend culture, and chose to cooperate with I.T Group in depth, through the formation of a refined trend brand matrix, a collection of classic, street and avant-garde three types of popular styles, in the strong business district to explore its own track.
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i.t’s new image store, Harmay’s first store in South China, Carhartt’s first store in South China, EX. I.T’s first store in South China.
It is not alone in driving the direction of the tide. From the pattern of business districts to personal consumption habits, any change will affect the direction of the tide.
In the past few years, in addition to the settlement of trendy brand single stores, a series of activities and events, from new store warm-ups, anniversary fan meetings, to limited-time flash mobs of limited products, are all shaping the personality of the venue. Repeatedly strengthening their own advocacy attitude to the outside world, so that the mall can get closer to the ideal brand mix step by step, is also a preliminary test for the next stage of brand replacement.
In 2021, the 10th anniversary of the brand’s establishment, the owner’s original brand SUPERTOFU from Dongguan, will hold its first offline event in Guangzhou at Wanling Hui.
With the foreshadowing of the previous stage, starting from 2023, Wanling Hui will further position its role as a “trendy lifestyle space” more clearly, and broaden the boundaries of the trend with a more open, diversified and integrated vision.
In addition to the basic actions of “going to the big store” and brand reorganization and reorganization, the investment promotion team also focused on the brand of product selection and street culture.
In addition to the first store, more designer clothing and owner brands from Guangshen have appeared in the venue, just to brew the new positioning of the mall in the next five years – “trend spirit buyer”.
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Onitsuka Tiger’s first concept store in Guangzhou, Roaringwild’s first store in Guangzhou, BLACKHEAD’s first store in Guangzhou, and AZEPAM Shopping Mall’s first store.
“Reconciliation” and “dissolution” with congenital hard injuries
Cycle innovation and dynamic adjustment are regarded as KPIs
In the past, the “one-word” long-term moving line brought by the long and narrow plot was the “hard injury” of Wanling Hui that was repeatedly criticized.
Today, the long-term circulation line has become a new advantage of Wanling Hui – the trend culture originates from the street, and the long-moving line provides the form of “street”, and avoids the disadvantages of outdoor streets affected by weather and temperature.
After the “reconciliation” with the congenital hard injury, the shopping mall has been resolved through phased engineering transformation and business adaptation, and has added the title of “the indoor trend block with the longest continuous display surface on Tianhe Road”.
Through the renovation of the glass curtain wall, the façade of the first floor facing the side of Tianhe Road has become more outward-looking, becoming a “walk-in” window along the street;
On the side of non-Tianhe Road with a relatively slow flow rate, a garden-style dining bar is used to extend the outdoor space beyond the box, breaking the original closed boundary of the box and the dull feeling of the interior.
These efforts to break through the limitations of physical space are also to better highlight the sense of “street” and integrate into the super “commercial street” of the business district.
Not only outdoors, but also indoors are also a long image display surface.
The more important significance behind the transformation of the moving line is to resolve the problem of vertical moving line derived from the long moving line.
Whether it is the optimization of the design of escalators, the improvement of the first floor and the creation of high-rise outdoor gardens, or the practice of cross-storey shops at the end, they all revolve around the vertical circulation line to release the value and potential of the vertical space.
A small change in three years, a big change in five years, and continuous adjustments and changes, each time can be called a “rescue” operation:
(1) The first is to optimize the traffic flow, swap the first floor with the negative first floor, and the first floor to the second floor escalators, resolve the dead angle of the moving line, and drive the passenger flow of the negative floor and the high floor to increase exponentially, which can be called the “textbook” type of traffic flow optimization.
In the next few years, such a moving line transformation, plus or minus escalators, can be said to be the “routine operation” of Wanling Hui.
After the escalator is relocated, the foot flow on the negative floor has been significantly improved, and the proportion of food and beverage will be gradually adjusted in the future, and more retail brands will continue to be introduced.
(2) The second is to increase the height of the first floor space. The mezzanine between L1 and L2 was demolished to improve the floor height and display surface of the shops on the first floor, so that the originally oppressive main passage became today’s indoor trendy street, and also provided hardware support for the subsequent introduction of high-quality retail brands. Coupled with the image changes of new brands and customized stores, the façade of the first floor has become more transparent and open.
This was an “impossible task” for a project that had been in business for ten years at the time.
The lobby of the office building on the first floor has been renovated to release a complete retail space, and it has also taken the opportunity to introduce the first GAGA in Guangzhou in 2019.
(3) In 2024, the mall will focus on the renovation of the shop line on the L4 floor and the repositioning of the mall, introducing light business catering covering Japanese, Chaoshan and Thai cuisine, etc., and working with tenants to transform the outdoor garden landscape.
This round of adjustment, on the one hand, better meets the needs of white-collar business customers in office buildings for rich cuisine and elegant dining environment, and on the other hand, it also realizes the renewal of the image of the entire floor, injecting new space vitality into Wanling Hui.
Re-investment after the adjustment of the rooftop outdoor garden.
The merchants also cooperated with the creation of various “eaves” doors, extending the “street” feeling to the venue.
Combined with the makeover of brand management content, it is a “shortcut” to help Wanling Hui achieve its goals faster.
About 20% of the area is customized and dynamically transformed every year, which is the KPI it sets for itself and its partners.
The most intuitive example is the UR brother brand [original], which has grown up with the support of Wanling Hui. Three years ago, after taking over the same brand of the group, O.C.E, the brand obtained a rented area of more than 2,000 square meters across three floors boldly planned by Wanling Hui, creating it the first offline retail space in China.
During the half-year-long renovation period, Wanling Hui was deeply involved in the spatial design of the tenants, including the addition of escalators in the shop, the removal of the structural mezzanine, and the embellishment of art installations, all of which made this anchor store the visual focus at the end of the circulation line, and finally presented as a complete and comfortable experience space, integrating into the atmosphere of the entire retail area.
It is such a “big fight” again and again, so that it has supplemented the entire Tianhe Road with a rare youthful temperament in the past for more than ten years.
BENLAI: It is a basic brand of functional fabrics created by Guangzhou FMG Fashion Momentum Group. As the group’s new masterpiece following the great success of UR, BENLAI adheres to the concept of “evolving basic models with functional fabrics”, starting from the current public clothing needs, and constantly explores the application boundaries of the new generation of basic models.
A distinctive character built day after day
The “Cantonese fun” of the fusion of trendy and rebellious
In Guangzhou, food is both a sentiment and a trend.
Those sugar water shops and ramen shops that were once scared away by the high rents of high-end shopping malls and squeezed into the depths of the narrow alleys of the side streets have slowly grown into the hearts of the younger generation of consumers.
Wanling Hui also tries to bring consumers a unique local “market trend” in addition to the chain brands through the good taste of these neighbors who use the “taste buds vote”.
Because of the importance of the stable customer flow of the mall and the respect of the project team for the individuality of the small store, many new brands from the community are also willing to settle their first store in the mall.
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Introducing Yushi Ice House, Wooo Suo, Jinda Ramen, Black Handmade Noodles, and bringing treasure brands such as VITAL from the community and from the streets to the shopping mall.
In addition, compared with the practice of simply relying on the stores in the venue to create content, Wanling Hui, which regards the main atrium as a city square, seems to be happy to create its own “explosion point”.
From the perspective of the type of activities, compared with other shopping malls on Tianhe Road, Wanling Hui gives people the feeling that it is always not so “end-up”, but more important to “human touch” and more bold breakthroughs.
Because of this, people are always happy to put all kinds of labels on it. In the past year, in addition to “trend”, “nostalgia” and “originality”, the impression left by Wanling Hui on the public has become more “local” and “integrated”, especially the Cantonese fun formed by the fusion of trendy and rebellious.
“Locality”: Let oneself be embedded in the city and fit the local culture. The [72 tenants] IP that will be launched in the Spring Festival in 2025 has strong regional characteristics and fan base in the Greater Bay Area, and reaching a cooperation with such a “collective memory” is a step for the mall to take the initiative to get closer to local consumers.
“Integration”: In terms of activity creativity, Wanling Hui captures hot spots in a timely manner, and dares to try in-depth cooperation with emerging IPs that have not yet been widely recognized by the public, such as cooperating with some emerging local independent artist IPs to create an immersive art experience space and give artists a platform to display.
On the occasion of the Chinese New Year in 2025, most commercial real estate projects generally adopt the theme of “Year of the Snake” as the answer to the Spring Festival activities, and the planning team of Wanling Hui has taken a different approach and launched IP co-partnerships related to local culture with the “Cantonese tide” culture in Guangdong as the inspiration.
It’s not easy to do something interesting. However, the long-tail effect brought by good content is not limited to a marketing event, but a long-term brand image establishment, which will open up and accumulate a wider range of topics and resources.
In addition to breaking through the homogenization of brands within the business district, the Wanlinghui team is also “fighting” to create the “uniqueness” of the project on the battlefield of promotion and planning.
From the theme day praising women to the dark market, the activities of “never bumping money” make everyone feel that the shopping mall is not actually a cold material background board, but a “friend” with temperature and positive energy, who can make friends, love, and get close.
These are also based on the planning team’s commitment to setting the project brand as a “label that dares to redefine the trend of life“.
Wanling Hui has also changed from a shopping place for a short stay and passing through to a gathering place for like-minded people who can stay for a long time, so that consumers can respond and seek each other with the same voice here.
Do not blindly follow or follow the trend, and can always appropriately combine its own characteristics, brand highlights and light cost, and closely follow the life circle of the young generation of local trend culture.
Focusing on the deepening of positioning, Wanling Hui not only continues to output its understanding and persistence in the selection of activities and the creation of scene atmosphere, but also continuously establishes and maintains its own circle culture through social communication (official account Onelog) to attract brands that match values.
Furthermore, the team hopes that the project’s audience, the young generation who actively embrace trend culture, will gradually move from recognition, acceptance, yearning, and “deep belief” of the positioning of Wanling Hui for itself, just like following a trend brand.
Make full use of the indoor plaza to provide brand culture display and interactive space for a series of first stores or topical brands in the city.
Obviously, this continuous content output has brought a lot of positive feedback:
In terms of customer quality, unique activities can attract consumers of different circles and ages;
In terms of brand building, through continuous cooperation with various characteristic IPs, Wanling Hui has established an innovative and urban brand image, which has not only won a good reputation in the hearts of consumers, but also attracted more attention from high-quality activities, forming a virtuous circle;
In terms of economic benefits, the increase in customer flow has directly driven the consumption growth of various formats in the mall, whether it is retail or catering, they have benefited from the popularity dividend brought by the event, and further consolidated its important position in the Tianhe Road business district.
Write to the end:
Compared with the elitism of other first-tier cities and wrapped in big names, in the minds of local young people in Guangzhou, “pop culture” is more respected.
In the face of a variety of competition, Wanling Hui, which falls on the core business district of the city, has cut a “way of overtaking” of its own: bringing the street trend into the door, creating a lifestyle that young people love and meeting the consumption experience that exceeds expectations.
After more than ten years of exploration and transformation, Wanling Hui clearly knows where its battlefield is, and accurately aims at the target price range, advocating and constantly approaching the trendy lifestyle experience of “no sense of distance”.
“We believe that the core of pop culture is that young people express their own cultural language, and through commercialization, we hope that more consumers can feel this core more quickly and at zero distance at a lower cost, and participate in and enrich it together.” The project leader of Wanling Hui said.
Nowadays, Wanling Hui, which is “reborn in rebellion”, has become an interesting place on Tianhe Road and a trend gathering point for local young people.
From the place of consumption, to the social platform, and then to the content production center, Wanling Hui will continue to update its operation ideas and “compete” with itself, which also makes everyone realize that Guangzhou is popular on this offline stage.
