Last month Daft Punk opened a one week pop-up shop in the Maxfield Gallery in LA. In an exhibition setting people could sniff and experience the Daft Punk lifestyle. As expected it was a huge success with waiting lines and lots of engagement on social. The eclectic duo is best known for their bold and authentic way of doing business and making music ever since they started in 1993 (if you want to see exactly how and why, check out their Unchained documentary). As expected this specific endeavor was very well thought out and executed to perfection with collabs with the coolest kids of fashion: Virgil Alboh’s Off-White and Gosha Rubchinskiy.

Exclusivity as a marketing tool

What the high street brand frenzy has created is a tsunami of a lot of the same: in stores, online and in the city landscape. The countermovement? Brands are now turning to offering exclusivity: in every way possible. One way this is working out is the current pop-up trend amongst established brands. Where previously pop-ups where the arena of small brands not able to afford a retail outlet, now the bigger brands are taking over and using it successfully for branding purposes.

What we can learn is that Daft Punk realizes something important, what Demna Gvasalia (who had his Vetements pop-up one week prior on the same location) describes as follows:

‘If you need to buy clothes, you go online and you click a button. If you go to a physical location, you are searching for added value - for experience-’.

It’s all about creating strong and meaningful experiences nowadays and effectively choosing the right mix of psychical and digital. So, what makes a pop up successful? We believe there are 3 important factors that determine success:

1. Create an experience that fits your identity: an experience that is authentic and from the heart.
2. Think about and develop an offering that provides added value to your customer, thus gives them a real reason to come like interesting collabs, limited editions, rare samples.
3. Use digital and PR effectively to create buzz around your brand.

Last tip, have you visited the Daft Punk website/shop already? Please do, if you want to see what experience branding is all about!

Photography credits: Mixedgrill.nl

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