PUBLISHING DATE: JULY 2014
(Original Submission)
PITCH CAMP, BREAK CAMP
It wasn’t long ago when a coveted burger joint hailing from California released a newspaper ad declaring their Manila store opening right on the day itself. And just when social media exploded and hoards of foodies dashed to the scene, it closed in a matter of hours. This is quintessential of a pop-up store, temporary retail, or flash retailing. Whatever you’d like to call it, it’s exactly what it means – it’s a shop that pops up.
The pop-up store concept is a marketing marvel the country recently picked up, but it has been an ongoing trend abroad. “[Pop-up stores] started in the early 1990s in large urban cities like Tokyo, London, and New York. They are temporary retail spaces, which allow brands to meet and connect with customers. It’s meant to be an intimate affair,” says Fashion Stylist Miel Villamor, stylehunter.ph owner and ROW 101 organizer. ROW 101 is a pop-up store for some of Manila’s chic and fashionable online brands that held its first event last June 27 and 28 at Privato Hotel. Erwan Heussaff of pop-up events consultant Manila Pop Up defines the trend as “a seemingly permanent yet temporary space and concept, created to sell a product. [It is to] set up a currently hyped locally unavailable service or curate a brand experience with the objective of testing or providing something new and setting a space for direct brand and consumer interaction.”
Its early stages can be traced from Los Angeles company Vacant when they uncovered a way to push limited edition products from niche retailers in targeted destinations. At a moment’s notice, Vacant would open a pop-up store for a particular brand and close after the products sold out, an idea originally from Japan and their consumers’ adoration for limited edition goods. From 2004 to 2009 Japanese fashion brand Comme des Garçons owned the title as the industry’s most famous pop-up practitioner when they began running shops lasting less than a year. Comme des Garçons pop-ups arrived unexpectedly at clandestine locations with no brand name on the storefront nor prices on the merchandise. Soon after businesses outside the fashion industry, from grocery stores to art exhibits, embraced the pop-up idea and rendered it mainstream in the late 2000s. All shared a common denominator – a chance encounter of novelties wrapped in a amusing, almost magical, platform.
As New York Magazine puts it, “[Pop-up is] a genre that only makes sense when it’s a surprise.” And this may be the defining factor that separates it from other temporary retails like bazaars and trunk shows. The Philippines, however, takes the term a bit loosely with pop-up stores here announced ahead of the opening, but keeps the main idea the same. Philippine businesses use pop-ups as a creative way to reach their market, test and sell their goods, and generate buzz all with minimal space and timeframe investment. “Pop-ups usually exist to whet the consumers’ appetite for what’s to come. The sneak peak also helps make you feel that you’re getting something a bit more special instead of mass-produced,” explains events and pop culture writer and editor Anna Limon. One of Manila’s first pop-ups, Bungalow 300, a store specializing in vintage modern furniture and objects, banks on this approach since 2009 as a way to showcase their inspired modern living concept. “I always collected mid century looking Filipino antique furniture and my partner Vernice is an artist and into interiors as well. We find it fun to salvage antique pieces and refinish them. We thought, ‘How do we sell these without looking like a tired, old, woodsy antique shop?’ We want to show [our products] in a setting that will educate people on how to use [the items] in their own homes, a way that inspires and feels like lived in spaces,” shares owner Marga Espiritu. An option that encapsulates Bungalow 300’s brand identity is to rent and transform a house from top to bottom, invite customers to view the pieces, and have almost everything, from furniture, sculptures, paintings, light pendants, to placemats, on sale. Once the items are sold, they close shop and open another pop-up store in a different home location. As each house pop-up is different, the products offered are limited, even customized for a specific setting.
In theory, the pop-up concept is a cost efficient method to establish a physical retail presence, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s effortless to pull off. With the rise of this trend comes pop-up retail spaces to answer a growing need for readily available venues, handled by organizers and consultants offering temporary locations that host sample sales, private parties, art exhibits, and the like. Heussaff, Michael Concepcion, and Dee Jae Pa’este with A Half Design Studio founded Manila Pop Up in 2013, a company that, other than contriving pop-up events for its clients, provides social media and word of mouth campaigns and guerilla marketing strategies. Manila Pop Up and Power Plant Mall’s pop-up flea market coined ‘The Neighborhood’ held on November 2013 was an amalgam of performers, food, live art, and retailers. Chiara Cui, an editor who’s been to one of Manila Pop Up’s events, views these affairs as “usually more original than traditional storefronts and offerings we’ve been accustomed to. Pop-ups can afford to take bigger risks because of its nature being short term, so they bring better concepts that are more exciting compared to conventional shops.”
Another regular event is Whitespace Sunday Pop Up held at Whitespace in Makati, which features local entrepreneurs displaying niche brands often alongside food sampling and art exhibitions. Resurrection Furniture, a Whitespace Sunday Pop Up participant, joins pop-up events “to be able to reach people who might otherwise not have the chance to see our stuff in our regular setting. It also puts us in contact with people whom we feel we can collaborate with for future projects.” Established in 2009 by Leah Sanchez, an architect, Binggoy de Ocampo, an interior designer, and Arlene Florendo Barbaza, a collage artist, Resurrection Furniture creates furniture and home accessories from reclaimed materials. Despite having a brick-and-mortar, the company has joined ADB Recycled Products Bazaar, Global Pinoy Bazaar, Whitespace Sunday Pop Up, Bungalow 300's pop-ups, and Balik Bukid Country Fair and frequently enlists in such events for the recognized benefits they bring to their business.
Villamor of ROW 101 sees how being a pop-up avenue promotes online sellers in more ways than one. “We’ve gathered 16 established and up and coming online brands in womenswear, menswear, and accessories to sell and showcase their products. We reached out to specific online retailers, set up the venue, and [provided] food and drinks. We believe there is a lively and competitive online marketplace in the Philippines, and we’d like to give online retailers a chance to get to know their customers offline. I think it’s really critical that online retailers get that human connection with their customers, and ROW 101 gives these retailers this platform,” she asserts.
And it’s not just emerging entrepreneurs that gain from pop-ups; global magnates such as Adidas, In-N-Out Burger, Tokidoki, Seychelles, and Uniqlo UT have used the trend locally as a marketing gambit and merchandise evaluator. But can the pop-up concept work for non-profit models as well? Julia Nebrija perceives it as an ideal approach for her Walking Labyrinth Projects. “The walking labyrinth project is the culmination of my interests in urban design, art, and meditation. My professional background is in urban planning and I am fascinated by the concept of urban acupuncture in which the urban system is regenerated by activating key points. The labyrinth becomes that platform for renewal in specific points throughout the city. I try to select places which need energy or attention brought to them,” she shares. The temporary installations, or labyrinths, are formed with recycled shipping pallets turned into as canvases that participants use to express themselves. The pallets outline the paths for the walking meditation that symbolically activates a space. Nebrija continues, “There are few places in the city where you can practice walking meditation so I started thinking of where I could put a labyrinth. I wanted it to be truly public and quickly realized it was going to be difficult to get permissions to install anything permanent. There is also limited public space where we can do such projects to begin with. This gave the labyrinth a slightly different spin. I decided to go with a temporary, pop-up labyrinth that could be installed in a number of spaces throughout the city.”
It is this sense of fleetness and exclusivity – unearthing a rare find or owning a limited product – that draws the masses to these temporary spaces. What began as a means to push seasonal or limited products and services became a gateway to a new form of guerilla marketing. Businesses count on the unique environment their pop-ups bring, wherein the heightened customer interactivity that creates feelings of relevance may be enough to test the waters and help decide on branding and target market forecasting; concepts that often rely on resource-heavy research and above the line marketing strategies.
