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.

eBay's holiday pop up store

A week before Black Friday, eBay launched a pop up store in one of the busiest, trendiest shopping locations in the world: 57th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan. The store was open for nine days. It sold no merchandise. It was created solely as a reminder that people don’t have to wait in line and battle crowds to get their holiday shopping done. They can shop more cheaply and easily with eBay online.

Inside the 57th Street location

Inside the 5,500 square foot store, trend experts and personal shoppers taught visitors how to navigate eBay’s website. Displays showcased the kinds of items customers could buy, such as laptops, designer shoes, and vintage Ray Ban sunglasses.

By occupying a three-dimensional space, eBay allowed customers to interact with and experience its brand. The pop up location allowed them to do this without the cost or commitment of a permanent store.

1. Pop up stores build urgency.

By having a limited lifespan, pop up stores motivate people to act fast. Otherwise, they could miss out.  

Nike's LeBron Zoom IV NYC Pop Up.

Nike launched a pop up store in Soho to promote its LeBron Zoom IV NYC basketball sneakers. The shoes were only available at the store, which was open for a mere four days. With that small a window, sneaker aficionados didn’t sit on their hands.  

2. Pop up stores turn unused spaces into vibrant places.

The economy has left many retail spaces empty. Shoppers see signs of failure and deadness - stripped spaces, empty shop windows. Then, suddenly there is sound, color, and energy. 

The Doodle Bar, a London-based pop up bar, lets customers draw on its walls, furniture, even its bartenders. The interior of the bar and café is a constantly evolving, community art project. Initially slated for the summer only, the bar’s success has led to an extended stay. The owners have taken an abandoned space and turned it into a creative space that hosts drawing contests and yoga classes.   

3. Pop up stores focus entirely on the customer experience.

Popping up cuts down on the financial commitments of store ownership, like long-term leases and ongoing payroll. Brands can offer customers an experience that’s more extravagant.

 At Alcoholic Architecture, another London-based pop up bar, patrons don’t drink their gin and tonics - they breathe them in. Upon entering the space, visitors are fitted with protective plastic suits and led into a room where a humidifier vaporizes drinks, creating a walk-in cocktail cloud. 

Alcoholic Architecture

Pumping drinks into the air probably isn’t the most cost effective way to run a bar, but Alcoholic Architecture was only open for a few days. As a result, the curators of the event-meets-space, jelly makers Bompas and Parr, were able to focus on a buzz-worthy experience without getting too hung up on their bottom line.

4. Pop up spaces offer a firsthand experience of a brand.

Customers experience retail brands inside the store. For companies whose products don’t headline a traditional retail space, pop ups allow them to bring customers inside their brand.

vitaminwater promoted new flavors with a Manhattan-based pop up store. In the store, customers could try free samples of the fresh flavors, check their email, play foosball, and hang out in a lounge that hosted a revolving cast of DJs. The store connected customers with vitaminwater’s brand more than they ever could have in the grocery aisle.  

5. Pop up spaces show off exciting, unseen products.

Often, brands use pop ups to gauge customer interest on a small scale. For visitors, the space gives them the opportunity to see what’s new and be the first to try it out. After all, who doesn’t want to see things first?  

In 2004, French fashion brand Comme des Garcons opened a pop up store in Tokyo. The company teamed with Apple to create a Comme des Garcons branded iPod, which was only available at the location.  According to allbusiness.com, the six-month run of the specialty iPod was expected to generate $1.1 million in sales.

Photo from Bompas & Parr

Alcoholic Architecture was a London-based pop up bar that gave patrons the option of drinking a cocktail or breathing one in. The bar used a heavy-duty humidifier to vaporize gin and tonic. The result was a walk-in cocktail cloud.

Patrons lucky enough to score reservations for the four-day affair were escorted from the street into a bar decorated with giant limes and straws. The interior was designed to look as if they’d just dived into a gin and tonic.

Upstairs, they grabbed a drink and were fitted with plastic suits to protect their clothes from the boozy vapors.

Downstairs, in the basement, they pass through a plastic flap door into a room transformed into the cocktail cloud. The small misty room fit about 25 people and guests were led out after 40 minutes. The limited time period helped ensure that guests would actually remember the unique experience.

The pop up was created by Bompas and Parr, a company that creates jellies and curates innovative culinary events.  

The company was also responsible for Scratch n Sniff Cinema, where a Valentine’s Day film screening was paired with a scratch and sniff card. The card featured aromas like rotting meat and old books that corresponded with scenes in the film.

Thanks to Anthony DeBono for pointing us to this story.

 

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.