IPC Shopping centre and Spotify try to find you the perfect meal

IPC Shopping Centre has revealed its latest mobile application solution to ease every shopper’s shopping experience and daily dilemmas. The IPC Shopping Centre mobile application is developed in collaboration with music streaming giant, Spotify, to provide shoppers with suggestions on places to dine or drink at IPC through its ground-breaking food and mood-matching tool. Together with Spotify’s rich user data, IPC Shopping Centre worked alongside world-renowned taste psychologist Professor Robin Dando of Cornell University to create ‘The Mood Menu’ - a food-and-mood matching tool based on a complex proprietary algorithm of human emotions and the effect on their sense of taste.The Mood Menu analyses users’ recent Spotify playback history to track their current mood. The users’ moods are then matched with suitable flavours offered by the diverse range of dining delights at IPC Shopping Centre, via the proprietary Mood Menu algorithm based on taste psychology insights from Professor Dando. Other than that, the IPC mobile application also contains informative details such as Store Guide, parking information, latest promotions, as well as members-only promotions for those who sign up for a profile within the application.According to Professor Dando’s landmark 2015 study published in the scientific journal Appetite, human moods have the ability to inhibit or accentuate sweet, salty, bitter, sour, or umami (savoury) flavours. "Our taste perception can be modulated by a variety of factors, and this includes our emotional response to pleasant or unpleasant real-life events. For instance, we were able to show that positive emotions go along with an enhancement of our sweet tooth, while negative emotions occur alongside heightened perception of sour tastes. This might be the reason why some of us go through emotional eating," he said Andrew Yeoh, head of marketing – Shopping Centre, IKEA Southeast Asia said, “We saw this as an opportunity to solve every Malaysian’s favourite question—“What to eat?” It is a common question we ask our friends, family, and colleagues almost every day. We hope that this solution provides our shoppers with a more pleasant and delightful shopping and dining experience. After all, it is part of our vision to create a better everyday life for our shoppers and visitors.” He added that lot of science, data, and technology have been put behind this mobile application."We are excited to be the first shopping centre in the world to collaborate with Spotify and Professor Dando to roll out this unique app for our shoppers. While the mobile application is tailored to match shoppers’ moods and help them discover IPC’s extensive range of dining choices, it also creates business opportunities for our tenants and empowers them with data to explore more exciting flavours and menu items," he said.Most recently, the newly renovated IPC Shopping Centre launched its latest campaign titled, “So Much More” in an effort to showcase its refreshed interior and a renewed brand belief: a retail space that goes beyond just shopping. The centrepiece of the campaign, “Once upon sight” is a charming spot that depicts the story of a little boy who experienced love at first sight in the shopping centre.The concept of accomplishing “so much more” in IPC Shopping Centre was brought to life by Bonsey Jaden and Directors Think Tank.