| EVENT REPORT 12.03.07 4:57 PM |
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| Geeked Out |
| For the third incarnation of its annual holiday store, Wired magazine moved to a bigger space, added a wider selection of tech products, and partnered with W Hotels to create pop-up kiosks on the West Coast. |
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If the Bon Appétit pop-up was a way for the food-loving public to sample fare from high-end chefs, then Wired magazine's six-week store is the place for the tech-adoring consumer to ogle new gadgets. Now in its third year, the magazine's retail showroom in SoHo puts advertisers front and center, enabling its readers and other holiday shoppers to browse and test-drive new technology from manufacturers including Canon, Palm, and Nintendo. Planned by the magazine and designed by Tronic Studio, the pop-up opened on Friday, November 16, and will run through December 30.
The new Greene Street location—the store was previously housed on Wooster Street—has an extra 1,000 square feet of space, which the team at Wired filled with a wider selection of products. "Our strategy has been consistent.... [The store] has well over 100 products this year, so the production selection has grown and the diversity of the products has grown. It's deeper and broader than before," explained Jim Richardson, Wired's associate publisher of marketing. Prices also run the gamut, with some gadgets under $100 as well as more expensive devices like the $13,450 water bobsleigh. For convenience, a new addition this year is a Web site that allows shoppers to buy the featured items online. |
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PHOTO GALLERY |
 | Tronic Studio and Wired's design team created the graphic look of the store, which featured visual cues like stripes on the floor in the magazine's signature pink.
Photo: BizBash |
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 | One of the challenges for the promotion was finding a space with drive-in access for sponsor Infiniti's vehicle display.
Photo: BizBash |
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 | New this year was an expanded lounge area for the larger number of home-entertainment items.
Photo: BizBash |
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 | The space is a mix between a gallery and a retail store, with the magazine exhibiting items such as Oregon Scientific's SmartGlobe Deluxe and Ultrasone's surround-sound headphones.
Photo: BizBash |
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 | The Sunday-afternoon scavenger hunts are designed to allow visitors to test the new Palm devices outside of the store. After completing the scavenger hunt, participants were driven uptown to the Palm store at Rockefeller Center.
Photo: BizBash |
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 | On Wednesday nights, the store hosts music spotlights sponsored by Beck's Bud Select, Intel, Olympus, and Patrón.
Photo: Louis Seigal/Louis Seigal Photography |
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 | Infiniti showed off its latest vehicles with the Wired Wheels promotion, which provided door-to-door shuttle service from the store to any Manhattan location below 34th Street.
Photo: BizBash |
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 | The magazine utilized the walls of the bathroom to display a shower holder for grooming products from Axe.
Photo: BizBash |
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 | The kiosks at West Coast W Hotels allow Wired to target a different demographic.
Photo: Drew Altizer Photography |
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Along with the display of high-tech products, the Condé Nast-owned publication brought back a schedule of weekly events ranging from live musical performances to afternoon tea. Of these, the most interactive is the Sunday-afternoon scavenger hunts, where store employees hand over new Palm Centro smart-phones to consumers and send them into the streets to scout a location using Google Maps and the device's camera function. To avoid community complaints, the magazine keeps the programming within retail hours, consistent with the stores in the area.
For the first time this year, the promotion also moved beyond its East Coast locale with kiosks—mini versions of the store—at W Hotels in California. Starting with the San Francisco property on Tuesday, November 27, the pop-ups will be open 24 hours a day and run for 10 days at hotels in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Silicon Valley. The pop-ups are aimed at reaching a wider audience: Wired hopes to target other demographics (such as business travelers) with this extension of the event.
—Anna Sekula
RELATED TOPICS
Wired, Pop-Ups, W Hotels
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