Page 43 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

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Figure 2.2 The New Orleans Quarter in Manchester’s Trafford Centre

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adventure’. There are areas based on the Orient, New York’s Grand Central station,
turn-of-the-century New Orleans, a Moroccan souk, Egypt, Venice and China.
Figure 2.2 shows the Trafford Centre’s New Orleans area (see also Figure 3.2 which
portrays areas signifying ancient Egypt and the Aztecs).
It might be asked why theming of this kind takes place. Why, in other words,
spend not inconsiderable amounts of money on simulated environments for
shopping and related activities, such as eating? One reason is that theming turns
the mall from a neutral and otherwise potentially uninteresting group of shops
into something of interest in its own right. In other words, in addition to differ-
entiating itself from other malls, the themed mall becomes a destination in itself
above and beyond being a place people want to visit in order to shop. I will have
more to say about this issue in Chapter 3.
The second factor has to do with the principle of adjacent attraction, which has
implications for the discussion in the next two sections as well. This is a market-
ing principle that proposes that ‘the most dissimilar objects lend each other
mutual support when they are placed next to each other’. This principle implies
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that placing otherwise unremarkable goods or services for sale in an environment
that is interesting or conveys messages beyond those provided by the goods or ser-
vices themselves renders them more attractive and hence more likely to be pur-
chased. The shopping experience is enlivened by theming. In part, the consumer
in a themed setting is consuming that setting as much as the goods or services
themselves when making a purchase.