1 Graham H. Roberts Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense That’s Entertainment: IKEA’s ‘Mega Mall’ Shopping Centres With more than sixty million visitors per year, the Mega Mall shopping complex in Teplyi stan, south-west Moscow, is the largest of its kind anywhere in Europe. Owned and managed by IKEA, the complex is one of thirteen identical centres currently open in nine Russian cities. Mega Mall is one of the undoubted success stories of Russia’s post-communist transition. But exactly how has IKEA gone about building the Mega Mall brand? How has Mega Mall succeeded in differentiating itself from the countless cloned shopping centres that are springing up all over the country? Are there any similarities between the way Mega Mall is marketed, and the manner in which IKEA is branded? And what does the success of the Mega Mall brand tell us about the state of Russia’s nascent consumer culture? This paper seeks to address these, and other questions. In the conclusion, attention is paid to some of the practical implications of the Mega Mall phenomenon for retail marketing managers in Russia. While our research methodology is based on field studies and observation, our paper is essentially conceptual, closer to sociology and philosophy than to economics. Keywords: retail, shopping mall, Russia, consumption, postmodernity Dr Graham H. ROBERTS Senior Lecturer in Russian Studies Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense 200 ave. de la République 92001 Nanterre Cedex France Tel. : +33 6 62 29 54 29 Email: graham.roberts@u-paris10.fr