Woodland Mall Revelations

          On our trip to the mall down the street, I noticed some things about Woodland Mall and malls in general that I might never have seen prior to our discussions of modern advertisement in class.  The first thing noticed, or rather didn't notice, was the outside of the mall.  While the interior of malls are colorful and inviting, the outside of the mall was quite unremarkable.  The insides of malls are designed to feel more comfortable than the outside to make it feel as if entering the mall is better than leaving. Upon entering the mall, I was met with the irresistible smells of the food court.  It probably didn't help that we decided to go to the mall right at lunchtime but in any case, I was famished by the end of the seemingly endless line of food options.   To my dismay, we skipped over the food court to get to the main attractions.  While the decor of the mall itself was comfortable, it was almost entirely white.  This gave the colorful stores the effect of a juicy fruit hanging from the tree, deliciously shiny and red contrasting to the unimportant remainder of the branch.  Inside of the stores was a blend of colors, textures, and sounds.  The blaring hip-hop inside of the clothing stores made it feel like a party, where I could forget all of life's worries and just let loose.  Once you've made your selections, the checkout counters are efficient, making the sale before you have any time to think twice. All of these observations were consistent with the descriptions and functions outlined by the article The Shopping Mall as "Stairway to Heaven" and the documentary "The Persuaders."

          While I was not surprised by most of the advertising gimmicks I was seeing, one store struck me in particular.  We walked into a journey's so one of my friends could look at shoes.  She had it narrowed down to two different colored pairs of Tom's but she wasn't sure which color she wanted.  One of the employees came over and began his pitch of each shoe's qualities.  "Typical advertising." I thought to myself until the employee off-handedly mentioned that for every pair of Tom's that was sold, a pair of shoes would be donated to a kid in a third-world country so if she bought both pairs, it would really be like buying four pairs, two of which would go to a needy child.  He then continued to paint a picture of these children in Nicaragua that would be forever grateful of this thoughtful american consumer.  While I do support the policy that Tom's Shoes will help people with their profits, I was intrigued to see how this policy could be used to exploit the lackadaisically "concerned" american consumer's personal convictions.  In The Persuaders one of the top advertisement advisers in the world showed how the most powerful advertisements are the ones that people subconsciously resonate with.  Whether it was his intention or not, the Journeys employee was showing the hidden religious aspects of the Woodland Mall and other shopping malls across america.