At Retail’s Big Show 2010, presented by the National Retail Federation in New York City earlier this week, one booth that drew attention belonged to a company called Swagg. Swagg, owned by Qualcomm, wasn’t trying to attract people with its offerings, solutions, or technology. It drew them with an open bar and lounge. What the company actually does remained a mystery. Something with mobile?

One of Swagg’s booth attendants told us they were “trying to get the name out.” Presumably, the idea is to pique people’s interest in the brand before revealing a much-anticipated product or service.  

On its website, the company’s entire “About” story says: “Swagg is brilliant, ingenious, revolutionary, and awesome. It lives on your phone and acts like your best friend. Trade gift cards, share points and get hooked-up everywhere you go.” That’s it. The only tangible takeaway is that somehow it helps you trade gift cards and share (loyalty) points. 

Some companies hesitate to say what it is they do in a clear way. They fear that if they do, they will box themselves in and lose potential customers. In actuality, a company loses potential customers when its offerings are not clear. If customers don’t know how you can help them, they won’t ask you for help.

Today, people are more discerning with how and where they spend their money. Most customers are not going to spend on sheer hype. People are distrustful of advertising, no matter how much a product “acts like your best friend.”

As a new company, Swagg is presented with an opportunity. The brand has a lot of energy and drive. But, it is easier starting with a clearly defined idea, rather than reverse-engineering one further down the road.

The risk of not defining yourself is that someone else might provide a definition for you.

According to The San Diego Union-Tribune: “Qualcomm’s Swagg is a software application. It allows the bar code for a gift card to pop up on a cell phone screen so it can be scanned by retailers.” Maybe Swagg doesn’t think that’s “brilliant, ingenious, revolutionary, and awesome” enough.

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Teary-Eyed Fans say goodbye to the A1 Thick & Hearty Burger.

Pop-up stores get attention through urgency. They’re open a few days or weeks, and if customers don’t act, they miss out on a unique experience. Pop-ups, however, aren’t the only way companies are building urgency these days. Whataburger, a Texas-based fast food chain, got attention for the way it dealt with one of its menu offerings: the A1 Thick & Hearty Burger.

The A1 was discontinued in December. Rather than just cutting it from the menu, Whataburger held the burger’s funeral. The headline on the eatery’s website, www.a1supportgroup.com: “Need help coping? You’re in the right place. Let the healing begin.”

On the site, fans shared their grief in a number of ways:

They uploaded photos and videos, wrote notes on a digital “Going Away Card,” and recorded audio goodbyes by calling 1-877-A1-Support.

A funeral for a burger is clearly meant to be funny. The site let customers in on the joke and gave them ways to create their own content and interact with the brand and each other.

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In an interview with Harvard Business School’s online publication Working Knowledge, HBS professor Sunil Gupta discusses why companies shouldn’t buy advertising on social networking sites:

“The click-through rate of ads on social networking sites is extremely low . . . because people don’t go to these sites to seek information about specific products.” They’re there to look at photos and communicate with friends. So, rather than looking to older advertising-based models of reaching people, like static ads, companies should try viral campaigns that focus on active things, like contests and giveaways.

Say, for example, Dell wants to promote a new laptop on Facebook. Dell can pay to advertise and accept that most people won’t notice the ad. Or, they can give away free laptops to several fans on Facebook. The cost of the computers is probably less than the cost of advertising, and the giveaway is much more effective at getting people talking about the brand within the network.

The lesson: Use the cash you would’ve spent advertising your product at customers and put the money towards something that directly benefits them.

The wine company, Carlo Rossi, is holding a contest with a $10,000 grand prize. Information about the contest can be found on the company’s Facebook page. To win, people have to read a little bit about the company’s “legendary” founder. They have to answer a few quick questions, like what’s their favorite sport or TV show. Then, contest entrants have to write a one hundred word essay about why they should be chosen to lead “the Carlo Rossi Posse.”

The contest lets people interact with the brand, generates entertaining content, and gathers information about what the company’s customers like. The approach is more valuable to both Carlo Rossi and its fans, and is more cost-effective.   

(photo via Wired)

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SET Japan's branded QR code for Coke.

QR (“Quick Response”) Codes are those boxy barcodes that have become more and more prevalent on t-shirts, magazines, stickers, fliers, and pretty much everything else. When scanned with a camera phone equipped with the proper reader software, the code brings up a URL in the phone’s browser. 

Though these codes create a valuable hardlink between the physical world and the web, from a design perspective their boxy look may not be an aesthetic fit for your brand. But, a post on PSFK points to SET Japan, a company that may give brands their cake and let them eat it too. (‘Their cake’ being the hardlink, and ‘eating it too’ being an on-brand, aesthetically appropriate QR Code).

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“At the end of the day, the store is the soul of the brand. . . A brand is your store. For example, if you mention Chanel to people, they think immediately about the Chanel store.”

–Domenico De Sole, Chairman of Tom Ford International

For more insights from De Sole, watch the video below or read the full interview transcript from Knowledge@Wharton, the online business journal of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

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photo courtesy of Gladys Santiago

vitaminwater recently released a new ten-calorie drink called vitaminwater10. To introduce it, the company didn’t spend millions of dollars on television commercials. Instead, they took over an empty retail location and opened a pop-up store.

The store, called “vitaminwater10 des10ation NYC,” opened on April 2nd with a red carpet kickoff party hosted by Carmen Electra.

Then, for the following ten days, the pop-up offered SoHo shoppers a place to hang. The store featured couches and refrigerators stocked with free samples of the new flavors. Visitors also entertained themselves with free WiFi, Nintendo Wii, foosball, a photo booth, and a revolving cast of DJs. In the store’s window, a live model demonstrated simple ways people could burn ten calories, including taking a shower and blowing bubbles.

On April 13th, the store closed. What did vitaminwater get for its ten days?

Ten days is longer than most promotional events, so it provided time to get people into the space, experience the brand, and try the flavors.

Ten days is also, in some sense, short. The time frame gave customers a sense of urgency. If they didn’t visit the store immediately, they ran the risk of missing out on the experience.

The pop-up also allowed vitaminwater an economical way to test customer response to its products. Temporarily taking over a vacant retail location is certainly cheaper than launching a television campaign, or rolling out a product nationwide to find that it misses the mark with customers.

vitaminwater is a recent pop-up example, but the concept has been around for years.

We’ve all seen Halloween stores that pop up in empty locations with the sole goal of selling product. These near-makeshift stores don’t even care if you know their name. They just want to get rid of as many clown wigs and vampire fangs as possible. These stores are strictly sales-driven.

Then, there are examples like Nike who, a few years ago, opened a pop-up location with the goal of selling 250 pairs of Zoom LeBron IV NYC basketball shoes. Why 250? That’s how many dollars the shoes cost. This pop-up was both promotional and sales-driven.

vitaminwater, however, didn’t sell any product. They gave it away. They used the pop-up space as a way to build brand equity.

Regardless of how it’s used, a pop-up store makes the store itself a limited edition item. It becomes as rare and desirable as a limited edition product.

As more retail space becomes vacant and companies look for more interesting ways to reach customers, we expect to see an increasing number of pop-up stores popping up.

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