Intimo più mare n° 205 - Settembre 2016

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
their website or check for the arrival of some email on my
mobile phone. Kiva enabled me to immerse myself directly in
an experience composed of true stories and in the span of an
hour and a half I went from absolutely no knowledge to the
mastery of a profound understanding of the concepts being
presented. In addition, I listened to the story of a president of
the United States, made lots of new friends and established
new contacts, experiencing an unforgettable episode that will
remain engraved in my memory for as long as I live, transforming
me into a devoted supporter of Kiva”.
CREATIVE RETAIL FICTION
Another interesting New York example. In this case of the
second type of creative retail, namely, the Fiction model. If
the above-mentioned Kiva event lasted for no more than a
single evening, the Museum of Feelings presented by Glade
(a leading American brand of home fragrances) managed to
literally mesmerize the Big Apple for fully three weeks.
“In this case there were neither a community to get involved
nor products to promote, at least not in the strictest sense of
the term”, explained Spielberg. “The S.C. Johnson Company
focused solely on realism which, paradoxically, had a magical
effect. Each of the five scented rooms of the museum inspired
the original design, deliberately created to arouse specific
feelings and emotions. For example, Glade introduced
its Lavender & Vanilla into the room of repose, featuring fluffy
soft clouds. Peony & Cherry, on the other hand, was utilized
for a kaleidoscopic floral image”.
The interactive exhibit created multi-hour lines at the entrance
and fully 22,000 colorful posts on Instagram, helping
to reinforce the Glade brands position as category leader in
the realm of the social media, as well.
THE SUCCESS OF CREATIVE RETAIL
These two examples of creative retail (Kiva and Glade) represent
only a minimal part of the American pop-up industry,
by itself worth some 50 billion dollars. The actual explosion
of this phenomenon is a fairly recent occurrence (2015) and
from now on all the brands intent of appealing to shoppers
will be thinking of nothing but investing in IRL (inspired by
real life) campaigns and events. Fully 79% of the brands interviewed
by Greg T. Spielberg for his research stated that
they implemented more experiential events and programs in
2015, with an increase of investments in this area to the tune
of 12% over that was spent in 2013.
“And the results are right in keeping with what one would
expect of brands that invest in real experiences”, Spielberg
commented. “First and foremost, they saw improved performance
in terms of sales and marketing. 65% of the brands
were able to associate experiential marketing efforts with an
increase in sales, while fully 84% of the companies with marketing
budgets exceeding ten million dollars are promoting
a focus on real experiences. The main factor when it comes
to transforming creative retail into an industry is easy to understand:
cheap space. The topography of all our cities has
changed; they are no longer distinguished by closed spaces,
but rather open ones. The brands don’t find it necessary
to sign contracts for desirable leases of five to ten years in
order to adequately cover national markets with retail outlets.
All towns and cities, whether large or small, always have
sufficient space available for pop-up operations which can
be utilized from just a weekend to a month of for the entire
season. A pop-up can even be little more than a tiny booth,
or one may opt for occupying an entire building. They can
be housed in a shopping mall or deserted industrial building
located in an up-and-coming neighborhood. It’s never been
as easy to find a retail space as it is these days. One is also
witnessing the emergence of start-up businesses designed to
provide temporary spaces or innovative new modular stores
(for example, ShopWithMe). The concept stores of the creative
retail category also take advantage of associations of a
cultural nature in order to promote emerging neighborhoods
or ones ready to be revitalized and rehabilitated”.
The scope of online interaction has a very clear limit. Smartphones,
computers, tablets and TVs are all solitary experiences.
Sitting in front of a screen is fun, useful and engaging,
but it is also anti-social, a poor surrogate for genuine interaction
between real human beings.
“The brands seeking a greater degree of interactive marketing
are shifting to offline means”, added Spielberg. “For Example,
names associated exclusively with e-commerce, such
as Fancy, Food52, TicTail and Kit & Ace have all created wonderful
stores. Amazon is currently testing brick-and-mortar
retail on the campuses of a number of colleges as well as
by means of a lounge in New York and San Francisco, after
opening its first real bookstore in Seattle. Microsoft has already
opened a store on Fifth Avenue and Drake has opened
in Los Angeles. Refinery29 has created and enormous house
of culture, while the latest-generation tech shop operated by
Wired has become a holiday location”.
It is quite clear that the new communication tool will be the
urban space. One must not forget that the various different
brands can actively collaborate with the multi-brand stores
when it comes to the organization of events, presentations,
previews and workshops as part of an effort to develop customer
loyalty. In this case, it’s not even necessary to find a
pop-up space.
TEMPORARY SHOPS
In Italy (where it has probably not yet been taken advantage
of to the full extent of its potential) a multitasking tool has
already been around for quite a while: the temporary shop.
Massimo Costa, the general secretary of Assotemporary at
the meeting in Milan entitled, Retail Now (The store as a
medium: opportunities and strategies of field marketing, organized
by Paola Gallas Networking), presented the many
opportunities of the temporary approach.
“Temporary shops are a distinctive feature of liquid societies,
in particular, pop-up versions or so-called moving stores”,
explained Costa. "As a matter of fact, they take advantage of
the three basic characteristics of liquidity: speed, changeability
and interactivity. Based on the rationale of entertainment,
experience and surprise, the temporary shop, either
the standard version or the pop-up store manifestation, is a
store with a predetermined lifespan, generally a very short
period of time (one day, six months as was the case for Expo,
but on the average for 30-40 days). The moving shop is an
itinerant form of the temporary shop”.
According to estimates of Assotemporary, there are some
22,000 moving shops in Italy, three- or four-wheel stores.
“The way it works is that the stores follow the customers”, explained
Costa. “And not because this is some sort of passing