SOLUESSEE: MARJA KOSKIMÄKI JA MIISA KUIVANEN

We spent one week in Nordic and Baltic intensive course 2018  in Tromso, Norway. It was the 10th year it was arranged and very well organized. Students were from Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, Norway and Finland. During the week we got to know the city, other students and their cultures, Norwegian university and the shopping mall Veita, which was our projects’s client. In this essay we introduce you to our assignment and our solution.

Introduction

Our task was to create something new in to Veita. Veita is shopping mall but it has only few shops in there and their dream is to have a community where everyone feels good to be part of.. Veita has tried to make some new improvements but they have not find their path yet. Traditional shopping malls need to evolve to meet the needs of today’s customers. More and more shopping is made online. We had many ideas but ended up with an opinion that Tromso is really lacking an indoor activities. It can be offered to families living in Tromso and people traveling to Tromso. Veita shopping is an easy reach as it its located in the heart of the centre.

Group members

Our group consists of 5 members: Martynas Švarcas (Lithuania), Grete Pärtel (Estonia), Marina Salvador (Denmark), Miisa Kuivanen and Marja Koskimäki (Finland). We have a great variety in our study programmes so that is our advantage as we can think ideas from many different point of views. Martynas studies integrated communication, Grete studies design and engineering, Marina studies product development engineering, Miisa and Marja study entrepreneurship and team leading. We all like creating and innovating new products and services so we were excited with this assignment as it gave us freedom to use our best skills.

From the beginning we had a shared goal: create something fun and also have fun while doing it! At the beginning we had many ideas and it was a challenge to find the one we all wanted to stick with and start to improve it. After many discussions we found the idea we all found interesting. As the project proceed we had some ups and downs but after all we have enjoyed the week and learned a lot from each others and their cultures as well. Working in an international team was fun, exciting and unforgettable experience.

Shopping centers in general

The markets have been in the field for long time, because back in the day it was the place, where people had interaction and purchase the products they needed. Nowadays, different retail companies are competing with each other and offering variety of products. The growth of the technology and innovation has reduced the people’s needs to go to the shopping centers. Instead of going to the physical stores, people are using online platforms to be interacted with new purchase experiences. The future shopping center should offer different solutions and ideas to improve the relation with the customer.

Veita Shopping center

Veita’s mostly customers are women, because there is a friendly place where you can stay with babies or do some shopping. From the outside of the building you can see two shops which sells mostly products for women, so men are less attracted than women. The pop-up stores that are based in Veita’s shopping center are not always filled with products or brands, so people who see empty cages might not want to come back. All in all, the shops are coping with struggles these days, so if you want to survive as a business in the future, you have to be different or not be scared to change it all and turn your business to the more alternative way.

Assignment

We received a task from a shopping centre called “Veita shopping” to create and innovate something new to their shopping centre and trying to solve what can Veita do to insure its future. They hoped that the results would be bold, different and something that would bring people together. The assignment also included part where we need to solve the problem how to get people to visit Veita shopping. Veita has created “PLAN TRE”- concept but it has not succeed in a right way.

What?

Tromso Troll Park will be an indoor activity park located in Veita Shopping. It is situated in 3 different floors. In the first floor there is an activity park itself, in the second floor is a ticket office and souvenir shop. In the third floor there will be a troll themed restaurant, VR-game hall and history section which is created like a museum.

Goals:

• Produce maximum profits, but still able to offer affordable entertainment
• Provide the best games/family sports with lates technology
• Great food
• Provide activities for a large range of age groups
• Unique in design with comfortable ambience
• Exciting work environment

How?

The first floor will be made to look like a magic forest. The colour theme in the park will be similar to colours of trees and rocks. We got the inspiration from Norwegian nature and mythology and want to get our visitors to feel the beautyness of it. We will create space to match the stories that are told in books. We are making caves and this kind of magical mystery forest. There will be also slides from second to first floor. On the second floor we have also a souvenir shop. On the third floor (plan-tre) we have museum where you can learn about Norwegian history and mythology..

Activities in the 1st floor:

• Evaluate your troll profile through a mobile app
• Dress up like troll
• Hear stories about trolls (“Trollytelling”)

Activities in the 2nd floor:

• Ticket office
• Souvenir shop
• Silent room for babies

Activities in the 3rd floor:

• VR-game “hall”
• History section, where you can dive into Norwegian history and mythology
• Restaurant (thema: trolls), there families can have lunch, dinner or some light snack

Why?

We wanted to create something unique in Tromso that you can’t find anywhere else in the world. We wanted to bring Norwegian history and mythology to alive and get everyone to experience it. Behind our idea was this history of Tromso being called Northern Paris, so we wanted to create our own Disneyland, Tromso Troll Park.

Children are our future and we want to give them an indoor space to freely experience and learn new skills. Our park will be an interactive place where newest technologies will be used in a useful way. The second group, tourists, are also important to Tromso and there is not much indoor activities to them either. Tromso Troll park will be a place you definitely want to visit whenever you travel to Tromso.

Our dream is to build a place where everybody wants to go again and again: like amusement parks.

Target group

Our target groups are tourists and families with children. We want to offer families a place to spend time with their children: have fun and learn at the same time. Second group is tourists who visit Tromso. Approximately 1.2 million tourists travel to Tromso every year who are willing to have new experiences. Norway is known mainly for northern lights and nature but here is not that much indoor activities. This park will be a great way to engage tourists with Norwegian history and mythology. It will be something different so that people from all around the world will travel here and want to visit the Tromso Troll Park.  We want to focus on these groups, This park will be a good way to make Tromso more known as the park will interest locals, media and tourists.

Customer profile

Locals living in Tromso:

Jon Magnus and Anna are parents of the Iversen family. They are a middle-class family and they live in Tromso city center and value family time a lot. They like to hike and do outdoor activities but they are missing an indoor place to spend time during the days when the weather is bad/rainy. Their children, Tomas (14-years-old) and Silje (8-years-old) are active kids who like to play and learn new skills.

Tourists traveling to Tromso:

Jorma and Anneli parents of the Virtanen family. They are traveling from Finland to Tromso with their children, Johanna (6-years-old) and Mikko (12-years-old). They are planning to go on a whale safari and explore the nature. Addition to that they want also spend a day in the city. Museums are a traditional way to get to know the history but that is usually a quite boring to children. Troll Park will offer an fun day for everyone to learn and have new experiences.

Communication

The communication is made by word of mouth through people interaction and via online platform. Since the traditional word-of-mouth message is disappearing as soon it is spoken, we are looking into eWOM, because the message remains over a period. eWOM includes blogs, online reviews, social media posts and messages posted on online groups. We are considering to use the famous influencers such as bloggers to promote the park, so more and more people all around the world wants to visit this place.

We will also have a website, where you can find information about the company,ticket  prices, location and attractions. We will also use Google AdWords to be more easily found while searching online.

Because tourism is a big income source in Tromso, we are also connecting different tourism companies and offering good promotions and offers to the customers. Advertising will be placed in local newspapers, magazines, sales brochures, taking part of tourists fairs and trades.

Mobile App

Since the online applications are very popular  the Troll app is created to attract the youth, who like to play games and using mobile phones everyday. The app’s goal is to have a registration and collect users data, while offering them an opportunity to create their own Troll figure/profile, with the similar characteristics than the users have. The idea is to offer global interactive entertainment to users for free. The app also gives information about the Troll amusements park and offers a virtual map. The revenue is gained with advertisements.

CONCLUSION

The history has referred markets as a community place, where people get together and bought necessities. Nowadays the technology is developing rapidly, which means that more and more people are adapting to the fast trends such as online shopping, virtual reality and A.I. Because people are more and more using social media, they tend to be more indoors and less active. When we were looking into the Veita shopping centre idea, that the centre should be a community. Considering Norwegian family models, they tend to be more family orientated and down to earth kind of people.
If considering these facts, we decided to explore the ways how to improve the people to people interaction.
The project aiming to change the understanding of the shopping centre as a new community centre, where all age of people can enjoy their time and explore the Norwegian mythology and history. The idea was offer new experience to be a troll for a day. Eat the theme food and explore the living areas. Overall, the idea was to differentiate the consumer offering, with a focus on new experience, by transforming the mall into theme park, where the tourists can experience by leveraging technology and multichannel strategies.