Over the past week, a notable and unusually synchronized wave of online posts flooded Kenyan social media platforms, painting some of Nairobi’s most established shopping destinations, including Two Rivers Mall, Garden City Mall, and Sarit Centre, as desolate, declining spaces that have allegedly lost their appeal to shoppers.
The repetition of identical narratives, amplified across TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and a range of gossip-oriented outlets, has raised concerns among industry observers about the origins and intent of this messaging.
While the surface message in these posts framed the decline as an organic observation by ordinary shoppers, a closer examination of the timing, uniform phrasing, and distribution pattern points to something more deliberate.
According to information shared with us by a source who claims direct knowledge of the campaign’s mechanics, the wave of negative publicity targeting these established malls may have been part of a calculated effort by a rival retail complex to elevate its own profile while discrediting its competition.
The whistleblower alleges that a prominent shopping centre located in Eastleigh, widely speculated to be Business Bay Square (BBS Mall) approached a network of influencers and content creators to produce content that would simultaneously cast their mall in a favourable light and depict competitors such as Two Rivers, Garden City, and Sarit as “empty,” “overhyped,” and “ghost towns.”
The campaign brief reportedly called for TikTok videos, X threads and offhand social posts, all echoing the same talking points and strategically timed to swamp feeds and simulate spontaneous public opinion.
The source, who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, described the operation as a massive PR war between the Eastleigh-based mall and its competitors, where some influencers were offered lump-sum payments while others were promised “exposure” through cross-promotion on high-traffic pages.
Some even received ready-made captions, hashtags, and short video clips showing “empty” sections of the targeted malls, with instructions to repost them as if filmed personally, making the whole thing look like genuine shopper feedback while in reality it was scripted content.
It is believed that the operation reflects a deeper problem within Nairobi’s retail sector, where competition is increasingly being fought through smear tactics rather than genuine service, innovation, or customer experience.
In this instance, a competitor mall appears to have deliberately abandoned fair competition in favour of a covert and highly orchestrated smear campaign, investing resources into manufacturing false perceptions of decline around its rivals in order to artificially elevate its own standing in the market, a move that not only undermines the principles of honest business but also risks permanently damaging its reputation among discerning consumers and industry stakeholders alike.
The whistleblower goes on to explain that the decision to pursue such a campaign was driven by an aggressive push from within the mall’s management to rapidly establish dominance in Nairobi’s retail landscape, even if it means crossing ethical lines and weaponizing misinformation as a competitive tool.
It remains to be seen whether industry regulators, consumer protection agencies, or competition authorities will step in to look into the allegations and hold those responsible to account but the episode has already ignited debate among retailers and marketing professionals about the ethical boundaries of competitive strategy, with many warning that allowing such conduct to go unchecked could embolden other players to adopt similarly deceptive tactics.
