How to Create a Multi-Brand Pop-Up

Sometimes one and one add up to three. Indeed, that’s the case when retailers cooperate to create a shopper-pleasing multi-brand pop-up.

In my last post I talked about co-shoperation – the partnering of dissimilar retail brands to create physical shopping destinations that promote lifestyles rather than ranges of product – and how pop-up is its most effective manifestation. The temporary and attention-grabbing aspects of pop-up facilitate high-impact, low-risk opportunities for retailers to provide shoppers with unexpected – and unexpectedly rewarding – brand-on-brand experiences.

A great multi-brand pop-up will reflect the way a shopper lives – or wants to live. It is a destination that allows her to discover new realities and possibilities. When done right, when the ideal brands come together to tell the perfect story, a multi-brand pop-up is aspirational, inspiring and a little bit life changing.

But as they say in the 3:00 a.m. infomercials that simultaneously torment and soothe me in my far-too-regular insomnia-induced buying hazes: “Wait, there’s more!”

Here are eight additional benefits of multi-brand pop-up:

1. Shared brand equity
2. Access to new shoppers
3. Re-interpretation of a brand
4. Cost effectiveness
5. Reimagined relevance
6. Category expansion
7. Increased talkability and social media activity
8. Expanded storytelling opportunity

Co-shoperation is a retail marketing tactic we’ll be seeing more and more of in the coming months. In fact, as retailers begin to fully understand the importance of meaningful, connective shopper interactions and the “lifestyle” mindset of the customer, the number of multi-brand pop-ups will surge.

So how will these forward-thinking, co-shoperation-focused retail brands find appropriate partners in pop-up? By using imagination and data. By understanding the shopper’s reality and her dreams. And by being brave and provocative and maybe a little unconventional (that’s how lifestyle trends start).

In addition, here are six jumping-off questions to help the retail marketer discover potential multi-brand pop-up partners:

1. What brands complement ours?
2. What brands contrast ours?
3. What’s popular and trending?
4. Are there themes can we exploit?
5. What brands are hot right now?
6. What would be the most unlikely brand for us to partner with?

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