How PR and Gamification Helped Double Mall Traffic in a Hot Summer: Kerry Properties Shanghai Case Study

What is this pop-up event all about

From June 18 to August 31, 2026, the plazas and indoor spaces of two Shanghai shopping malls — Jing'an Kerry Centre and Pudong Kerry Parkside — were transformed into an open-air summer town called "The Fish-tastic Summer".

This was not a spontaneous initiative of a single mall, but an official partnership of Kerry Properties with Paramount and Nickelodeon, the copyright holders of the SpongeBob franchise. The collaboration was planned in advance as a marketing tool, and the organizers directly call it the "national debut" of the exhibition in China.

A total of 73 characters were placed across the sites — including a giant fish, a Squidward fountain, multi-level photo zones, SpongeBob's pineapple house, as well as a pop-up "Bikini Bottom Department Store" featuring over 200 exclusive items out of a total range of 300+ positions. The format includes photo spots, limited-edition merchandise, DIY figures, and stamp missions.

Admission was free and required no registration — a pleasant bonus for a large-scale licensed event in Asia's largest metropolis.

The Philosophy of Background Fish

Western media call this event "the city's most relatable summer attraction." The exhibition is dedicated not to the main characters, but to the "background fish" — secondary characters who just swim by in the cartoon, but have long been fan favorites on the internet.

The core concept runs deeper. The main site at Jing'an Kerry Centre is built around the Chinese slang expression "摸鱼" (mō yú), which literally translates to "touching fish," a workplace slang term for slacking off or procrastinating. This is an instantly recognizable meme for Shanghai's youth: every office worker has "touched fish" at least once instead of working.

More than 50 statues of background fish are scattered throughout the mall, each looking like they have completely given up on office life: fish waiting for a bus after work, staring blankly in the shopping hall, or simply lying exhausted. The most striking installation is a 17-meter exhausted fish stretched out on the sky bridge, looking as if it just survived another deadline.

The message of the exhibition is clear to everyone: "you are not alone in your burnout." In a metropolis of 25 million people, where job competition turns people into "fish swimming with the flow," this concept sounds like emotional support: yes, you are tired, and that's okay, let yourself "touch fish" at least today.

Chinese social media users joke that the exhibition is "too accurate," and that every fish looks like someone from their office or themselves. The concept does not call for heroically overcoming fatigue; instead, it offers to legitimize a pause: come to the mall, take a selfie with a fish that "also doesn't want to work," and return to reality slightly less burnt out and refreshed.

Kerry Properties positions its shopping centers as a cultural hub, i.e., a space that understands the emotional state of its audience. Amid the identity crisis of offline retail, this PR strategy turns the company's two malls into points of attraction rather than just shopping destinations.

When Discounts Are Powerless: The Marketing Math of Heat

In June-August, Shanghai shopping malls traditionally fight for survival. Air-conditioned halls compete not so much with each other as with home interiors and the "order on Taobao" button. Discounts stop working: when it's 40 degrees outside, a 20% saving does not compensate for the discomfort of visiting a mall.

Kerry Properties chose a paradoxical and entirely PR-oriented move. Instead of another summer sale, the company launched a licensed exhibition simultaneously in Jing'an and Pudong — a single campaign working for two of the holding's malls at once. The entire mechanic, from photo zones to merchandise, is geared toward generating media reach rather than direct sales, and therefore proved stronger than the heat.

Every photo zone is designed for user-generated content (UGC). Patrick lying in a fountain, Squidward at a bus stop, a giant fish against a glass facade: all of this is created so that a guest takes a picture, posts it on WeChat, Xiaohongshu, or TikTok, and tags the mall's location. In this way, visitors voluntarily become marketing agents, promoting the mall on social networks.

With social media algorithms prioritizing emotional and nostalgic content, such an exhibition generates reach that cannot be bought directly with money but can be engineered through a smart licensing partnership.

A separate mention goes to the range of Shanghai exclusive merchandise sold solely on-site, including China's first large-scale collection dedicated to background fish. This is a classic mechanic of artificial scarcity embedded in a PR campaign: a visitor who braved the heat for a photo takes home a physical artifact that cannot be purchased online. The merch becomes a trophy, and the trophy becomes a reason to return once the heat subsides.

The Second Layer of Mechanics: Gamification Instead of Passive Viewing

If the PR partnership answers the question "why they came up with this," gamification answers "why it works physically." The organizers integrated gaming elements into the exhibition that literally force visitors to move across the entire mall territory rather than lingering at a single installation.

Stamp missions (collecting stamps) in a mall are a classic gaming mechanism where a guest collects marks at different points of the location. The bonus activity is structured to stimulate full completion of the route between locations: for 4 stamps collected in both malls, a visitor receives a branded SpongeBob bag.

DIY figures add an element of participation: visitors do not just observe the characters but create something with their own hands, which holds attention longer than passive viewing. Live character shows function as the anchor event of the day, making it worth planning a visit for the evening — this brings additional foot traffic during hours when the heat subsides and people are more willing to go out.

It is precisely the combination of licensed PR and game mechanics that yields an effect that cannot be achieved by either tool alone: PR provides the media buzz and the right to use popular characters, while gamification turns a one-time visit into a journey through the entire shopping mall. This creates a competitive advantage — engaging visitors through actions and emotions: joy, curiosity, and excitement.

How to Digitize Emotions: The Funnel Architecture

Kerry Properties, like any large holding, does not disclose exact figures on stamp mission conversion and UGC volume, but the mechanics of the promotion themselves reveal its KPIs. The gaming funnel is designed so that every action can be tracked physically.

The key insight lies in the mechanics of awarding the grand prize. To receive the branded bag, it was not enough for a guest to tour one mall: they had to collect 4 stamps from two different sites of the holding, Jing'an and Pudong.

For marketers and mall owners, this is an example of how gamification solves three business tasks simultaneously:

• Conversion tracking: the number of bags distributed clearly shows how many people completed the route rather than just taking photos at the entrance.
• Traffic cross-pollination: the holding got the audience to move between its assets, spilling traffic from one location to another.
• UGC stimulation: tying bonuses to posting a tag on social media ensures measurable growth in mentions without spending on blogger seeding.

Even without knowing the exact figures from internal reports, it is clear: from the very beginning, the promotion was designed not as an image campaign, but as a measurable performance tool in the offline space.

The Numbers: How the Pop-Up Affected Conversion

The results were not long in coming. "The Fish-tastic Summer" exhibition became one of the most visited commercial attractions in Shanghai during this period. According to City News Service, the exhibition attracted up to 150,000 visitors per day. This was more than double the previous year's level.

For a shopping mall, this is not just an influx of onlookers, but direct conversion into sales: people who come to the photo zone enter the cool halls for merch, coffee, and impulse purchases. Significantly, the same PR mechanic, replicated across two locations of the holding, allowed Kerry Properties to double the effect without doubling the budget — a classic advantage of a centralized licensing campaign over point-based promotions by individual malls. Thus, emotional visitor traffic was transformed into commercial traffic without a single discount in the malls.

Takeaways for Marketers

Analyzing this event as a case study, we see three levels of audience engagement in hot weather conditions:

• Traffic level: free admission lowers the barrier, while large-scale licensed installations generate virality stronger than discounts.
• Commercial level: limited-edition merchandise and local collaborations convert emotions into sales when traditional promos are powerless.
• Meaning level: working with "secondary" characters creates an emotional resonance and distinguishes the event from hundreds of other pop-ups.

A separate lesson in campaign architecture: PR partnership secures the licensing agreement and media reach, gamification (stamps, DIY, scheduled shows) retains the visitor inside, triggers emotions, and forces them to physically walk through the entire shopping mall, while scaling a single concept across two holding locations multiplies the effect without doubling costs.

This case study is not about SpongeBob, nor is it about China. It is about the fact that offline retail wins not where products are sold, but where people are given a reason to leave their homes, and where they are welcomed and invited to play. This is a case of discounts ceasing to work, while visitor emotions do. Kerry Properties identified burnout as an emotion and turned it into a gamified route across the entire shopping mall. While Kerry Properties does not disclose direct sales growth data, the mere mass presence of the audience in the shopping areas creates ideal conditions for impulse purchases.

In this article, we analyzed offline gamification using the example of Kerry Properties. However, we apply the same logic — emotions, routing, UGC — to digital campaigns. See how we launched gamification for the Binatec brand and for the PLAYMOBIL (Germany) offline exhibition.

Sources:

1. Shanghai Municipal Government. Bikini Bottom residents arrive at Pudong Kerry Parkside. English.shanghai.gov.cn, July 6, 2026.
2. Shanghai Municipal Government. 11 Shanghai Summer events you won't want to miss. English.shanghai.gov.cn, July 6, 2026.
3. City News Service. [First in Shanghai] Jing'an Bets Big on 'Debut Economy'. Citynewsservice.cn, July 8, 2026.
4. China Insider. Shanghai turned SpongeBob's background fish into the city's most relatable summer attraction. Chinainsider.news, 2026.
5. Trip.com. Must-visit spots in Shanghai this summer: Bikini Bottom and Fishing Town. Uk.trip.com, 2026.
6. Jiefang Daily / 上观新闻. 刷屏！静安嘉里中心惊现巨型"萌物". June 17, 2026.
7. Jiefang Daily / 上观新闻. 上海最新顶流，又在静安！直击人人人人鱼鱼鱼人人人人盛况. June 18, 2026.
8. Sohu / 新闻晨报. 依托城市定制场景"上海之夏"刮起"首展风". July 3, 2026.
9. Trip.com (Hong Kong). 上海海綿寶寶快閃展覽暑假必去！比奇堡居民化身「打工社畜魚」. 2026.
10. Zhihu. 「比奇堡的居民们」全国首展双主场齐开，激活城市夏日新体验. 2026.

The mechanics of this case study, from lowering the entry barrier to gamification and limited-edition merchandise, can be adapted for any shopping center, store, or offline point-of-sale regardless of the budget. We have broken it down into a step-by-step checklist with specific actions and metrics to evaluate the impact. If you would like to receive the checklist or have any questions, please submit a request in the form below, and we will get back to you shortly.