Can I ask all the people who work at advertising and marketing agencies who read this site to stop advising their clients to create pop-up stores. News that Pepsi are about to launch a pop-up store in New York reminds me that this style of marketing activity has become a cliche. The world is flooded with pop-up stores no-one wants or needs..
Sure, it makes your clients spend some more money with your agency when you convince your clients via PowerPoint that a pop-up store would bring their brands to life-like-life – but to be honest the world does not care about a temporary store about Pepsi. If we really did want a Pepsi experience, we would walk across the road to the deli and buy a can.
Sure we love it when Method does a store because it’s hard to find their bloody products so it’s great to get the whole range somewhere and sure we love Target’s pop up stores because they’re fun and we also pretend that there isn’t that hell-hole version in Brooklyn for us to go to. Racked reports about the Pepsi Store:
Pepsi has decided to make an appearance with their new logo by hosting a one-day fling from 12-7pm on Saturday in the Openhouse event space at 201 Mulberry Street in Nolita. Reeling from their success last week in LA, the “Pepsi Proper” Shop, co-sponsored by streetwear site Hypebeast, will absolutely be attracting an eclectic crowd.
No doubt there will be free Pepsi, but again the idea is to buy things; products from brands like Commonwealth, Rockport, Jeff Staple, Violette, Hellz Bellz, and Orchard Street will fill the space while DJs spin to get you in the spending mood.
Love the Staple and the gang but it sounds like it’s marketing by association. Pop Up Stores are last year’s graffiti covered products which were the year before’s customized designs. Come on… we were writing about them in 2004.
Agencies: please stop reading the cool sites and start doing cool stuff instead. Ah, but then you wouldn’t work in advertising would you…
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People have been creating and writing about TV ads for decades but nontheless, agencies still insist on making them and clients continue to spend vast suns of money on them.
As we know, most of it is dreadful and creatively bankrupt but every now and then an ad will appear that justifies the whole thang.
I’d rather experience and enjoy a brand via a pop-up store than look at another identi-kit print ad.
They’ve simply become another string in the marketing bow along with Facebook profiles, twitters, promotions, sampling, stunts and whatever f;avor of the month band wagon happens to roll by.
The key to all of it is imagination, without this the whole things sucks.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
That, of course, is not to say that print ads can’t have imagination, right?
I’d like to see one of these solution-neutral companies do a great piece of imaginative, communicative print design on a well-selected billboard or two… Oh wait, I think I know one!
December 17th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Hey guys, I think you’re missing the point. Big companies doing pop up stores is them just co-opting the idea with no real impact on their brand at all. I mean it’s really obvious to everyone that Pepsi could care less about those clothing brands they’re just trying to buy their way in with the cool kids.
If they’re going to do a store it would be great to do something that was a little closer to their core. They’re a global company so why not bring you products from around the world that you can’t normally get cause they’re Pepsi and can go their for you? At least then they’ve made an attempt at being authentic.
These type of stores just prove that as long as new ideas keep coming big companies will take them and co-opt them with no real sense of how to really leverage it. And I must say honestly like the author above, I’m just sick of seeing it.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Stop hating! Instead do your Job and fuse this “positivity” you keep claiming.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
ahhhh ha.. But I do. My name is Coltrane. I own Epiphany. The agency producing this………..
Wow I made you choke.. DIDN’T I…… Question cool again, and I will show you my resume. We doing this to give back to the brands who were having a hard time getting through the hard retail times during this holiday season. So………… Now what..? ALL of these participating brands are MY personal friends and I applaud PEPSI to stepping to the plate to right a wrong! So, see you at the pop-up, if you really have the off-line guts to show up and say this to all of the brands when they arrive. Even Chris from Fruition who is travelling from Vegas with his wifey to sell product……. Take notes. Real is real, and you are not familiar! Stop typing and LIVE…..!
December 17th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Good point. I’ve immediately deleted all my powerpoint slides on pop-ups and replaced them with ones on ARGs. That should carry me through to April at least…
December 18th, 2008 at 12:57 am
All valid points but the last para left a bitter taste… if agencies stopped “reading the cool sites” the PSFK would become a newsletter written for friends and family.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Thanks for all your comments. I can totally understand that these stores take hard works and collaborators. A cliche is a cliche. I don’t think the world doesn’t need a Pepsi pop-up store.
And Peter – I am inspiring positivity – less visual & tangible waste.
December 18th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Your article is all the way negative. I think Coltrane has put up some valid points here, that you just don’t seem to accept. If this site is about positivity, then why don’t you stop the bashing and write about inspiring things. Bashing is not inspiring.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hey Piers -
First off, I read your blog quite often and I respect your marketing acumen. I am a huge fan of the intelligence that your site presents on a daily basis.
That said, I am a little turned off by your post…and I hate to say that your evaluation of Pepsi’s pop-up store is a tad out of focus…
For one, Coltrane Curtis is the person curating this event. Google him, seriously… So as for your call for agencies to stop reading “cool” and start doing “cool” the problem is, well, Coltrane’s professional life has been about making the “cool” that other agencies read about. And, that he’s partnered with Hypebeast, the site that I’m the Marketing Director for, makes a lot of sense: for his agency, for Pepsi, and for us. All in all, Coltrane is our actual friend, not an email address with a bank account. And for Hypebeast, this is a win for us as all but TWO of our staff are based in Hong Kong. This pop-up is truly special for us. It’s making our site part of an actual event (read: not online…).
Secondly, two of the brands that are exhibiting in the space are not from NY.
Fruition (www.fruitionlv.com) is the ultra-cool vintage clothing store from Las Vegas. Have you heard of them? This is their first retail venture of any kind in NY. Much cooler than Target… Their energy sparked the current retro movement in ALL of hip-hop culture. Ask the clients that they style for: M.I.A, Kanye, Lupe Fiasco… Also the head of the store runs Stussy and Undefeated in Las Vegas. Did you know that?
The other store/brand Commonwaelth (www.cmonwealth.com) is arguably the top streetwear store in the US based on the accounts that they carry. Interestingly enough: they are from Virgina. And who is one of their partners? Oh yeah, Pharrell.
I could also talk about the brands exhibiting. Just know that they include people who are behind the pulse of this “cool” culture that so often gets lost in translation. Have you heard of Supreme and Def Jam? Yeah their people are in the mix too…with their own personal brands.
And to be honest, that’s just it. Your topical glance at this Pepsi collaboration is proof enough: you know Target, Coltrane knows street culture.
If you knew about the brands and people involved with this experience, and the motivations behind its conception (read: helping brands sell clothing and aligning them with one another) you would know that this pop-up is right on the money for a multitude of reasons.
Also, DJ Neil Armstrong, the DJ spinning the event, came from the battle turntable scene that streetwear grew up with. And what is he today? He’s Jay-Z’s DJ. Did you know that?
Probably not.
After all, our reference set must have been lost in your mere reading, and unknowing of the behind-the-scenes culture and the people behind the content, of “cool sites”… It’s ok, I’m not in your lane and wouldn’t assume that I have even an infinintesimal amount of the big business marketing knowledge that you have. But we know this market, and, as you’ve proven that perhaps you overstepped your bounds–or maybe just didn’t do enough research before you signed off on Pepsi Proper?
So, now that you know more about Pepsi Proper, perhaps you should have left your bashing of meaningless retail experiences for ones that lack meaning… I’ll be sure to check that post out when I read your blog, as per usual, in the near future…
Peace.
Commonwealth (www.cmonwealth.com)
December 18th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
*the posting of the Commonwealth URL at the end of the last post was a publishing error, not a sign-off signature from Commonwealth. That post, as well as this one, is still from Sky from Hypebeast.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Piers, I’m gonna have to agree with you on this.. I think that the issue here is that Pepsi sucks, their new logo sucks and a Pop-Up for the brand is about as culturally relevant as a Pop-Up for McDonald’s.. A Pop-Up art show like Hadid’s “Chanel Art Pavilion” brings some interesting things to the front.. but a new logo for a mediocre brand.. is it really important? Is it gonna make me want to grab a can of the stuff? They have changed their logo so many times it has lost all meaning..
December 18th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Positively great reading guys, thanks Piers for blogging your perspective and allowing others to air theirs… PS. I’m with you on this one…. seeing multi-corps trying to be cool is a more like a huge advertisement for the art of masturbation.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:17 am