'The Children Keep Asking When Yunn Will Come': How a Mascot Became the Face of a Shopping Centre’s New Year Campaign

Client: IYUN Shopping Centre, Mytishchi, 150+ tenants.

Challenge: to host New Year events to increase footfall and tenant turnover. Activities needed to appeal to families, engage both children and adults, and last over a month with increasing momentum leading to a final prize draw.

Solution: a creative concept 'The Perfect Place to Believe in a Miracle' featuring the custom mascot Yunn, shopping centre décor in a unified visual style, a sales promotion with receipt registration and an Apple tech prize draw, and a children's programme of performances and animation during the school holidays.

Result: 37-day campaign, 6 event formats, a mascot with a life-sized costume, and a final prize draw with three major prizes.

Timeline: 37 days

Key highlight: the mascot Yunn became the visual core of the entire campaign and was brought to life as a life-sized costume.

IYUN Shopping Centre in Mytishchi is a 178,000 m² retail destination with a monthly audience of 1.5 million visitors. Ahead of the New Year season, the brief was predictable: festive activities for families with children, with an emphasis on shopping and a lasting effect.

The SICHKAR GROUP team proposed not a collection of individual events but a single unified story. At its centre was the mascot Yunn, whose visual identity was created using AI generation combined with work by an illustrator. The character appeared on banners, a promotional stand, an art installation, and a campaign landing page — and then stepped out to meet visitors as a life-sized mascot costume.

In this case study, we break down how one idea connected décor, a promotion, a children's programme, and six event formats into a 37-day campaign.

The client’s brief was specific: New Year activities for a family audience with a lasting effect from launch to the final prize draw.

The standard toolkit for such a brief is familiar: a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, a photo zone, a prize draw. All of this works, but it does not distinguish one shopping centre from another. A visitor will not remember where they saw Santa Claus — at IYUN or at any other shopping centre.

The SICHKAR GROUP team proposed a different approach: give the campaign its own hero.
During a brainstorming session, a question emerged: what if IYUN Shopping Centre had its own character? Not a seasonal hero for one campaign, but a mascot tied to the centre’s name.

Thus, Yunn was born. According to the legend, he appeared from a summer cloud and the first winter snow. The name 'Yunn' means 'cloud' and rhymes with 'IYUN' (the centre’s name). The character was conceived as the guardian of the shopping centre’s miracles, connecting him to the concept 'The Perfect Place to Believe in a Miracle'.

The idea worked on multiple levels. The mascot became a visual anchor: his image unified banners, the landing page, promotional stands, and the life-sized costume into a single recognisable story. Instead of scattered activities, visitors experienced a cohesive campaign with a face.

Yunn’s visual identity was created using AI generation. Over several days, the team tested dozens of appearance variations: proportions, 'fur' texture, facial expression. With traditional illustration, each such variation would have required a separate round of rendering. Generation allowed us to find the precise image before production began, saving time at a stage where time was critical.

The final Yunn is fluffy, rounded, with a soft glow. The image reads instantly, working equally well on a large banner and as a tiny thumbnail on a smartphone screen.

Yunn became the centre of the campaign’s visual code.

Colour palette: red, white, gold. Styling: New Year-themed, warm, without excessive ornamentation.

The agency team designed and installed several built environment elements:

• 'Gift Bag' Art Installation. A large-format structure in the atrium featuring Yunn’s image and the text 'Miracle Packaging'. The installation served two functions: festive décor and navigation to the gift-wrapping station.

• Promotional Stand for the Campaign and Gift Wrapping. Decorated in the campaign style with Yunn’s image and a QR code linking to the landing page.

• Banners. Two banners covered technical areas on the upper floors. They simultaneously solved the problem of decorating 'unsightly' zones and served as advertising surfaces for the campaign. Barrier posts in the same style completed the look. At the shopping centre entrance, visitors were greeted by a 'Miracle Inside' banner featuring Yunn peeking out. This device set the mood before visitors even entered the retail gallery.

n the concept presentation, the life-sized mascot costume was listed as an optional element. When the client saw Yunn’s visual, they decided to implement it. Our team organised the production of the costume in parallel with the preparation of other campaign elements.

The costume replicated the AI-generated character’s appearance: white, fluffy, rounded, with large eyes. Taller than an adult human. Yunn wandered through the shopping centre’s floors, hugging children and adults, dancing, and posing for photos.

The life-sized mascot solved several problems. Children recognised the character from the banners and dragged their parents to take photos. The photos spread across personal social media accounts. Yunn kept families in the shopping centre longer — children did not want to leave.

The bridge from a digital character to a physical incarnation strengthened emotional attachment. Visitors came 'to see Yunn', not just 'to the shopping centre'.

IYUN Shopping Centre received not a one-off promotion but a cohesive New Year campaign with its own face. The mascot Yunn united décor, digital channels, events, and promotions into a single story. The life-sized costume brought the character from the screen into physical space. Six event formats covered 37 days from the start of December to the end of the school holidays.

Yunn remains an asset for IYUN Shopping Centre. The character can be adapted for spring, summer, and autumn campaigns, scaled into merchandise, and used in navigation and audience communications.