To promote its new Pac-Man-themed T-shirts and draw customers to its Soho flagship, Uniqlo hosted a competition last Friday night, pitting arcade-loving ambassadors from companies like Vice magazine and New York Comic Con against each other in a Pac-Man playoff.
The Japanese retailer releases a new collection tied to its homeland each year, but not all of the previous iterations have had the brand recognition of the popular game, which originated in Japan in 1980. So the company saw it as a promotion that could have the power to bring in a wide variety of customers. "We picked a less familiar Japanese game last year," said Uniqlo USA marketing manager Jean Shein, "but partnering with [game distributor] Namco just before Pac-Man's anniversary meant that we could really exploit the game's popularity with something that related to both our brands and products."
Shein said that in-store events haven't become more of a priority for Uniqlo during the recession, and partnerships like the one with Namco aren't something that Uniqlo necessarily seeks out. But when they do happen to fall into place, the company is happy to get life out of the initiatives.
In the ramp-up to Friday's event—which was produced and promoted with the help of the niche events professionals at New York-Tokyo—Uniqlo installed the decor a few weeks early to boost interest in the collection and the competition. The entire mezzanine in the back of the store was filled with Pac-Man graphics, the floor covered in a screen-shot of the game, and its circular yellow namesake emblazoned on each of the stairs leading to the first and second floors. In addition to the T-shirts being sold, Uniqlo designed a special Pac-Man shopping bag for the month. Overwhelming requests from shoppers emptied the store's stock of them early on during Friday's competition.
The rules for the contest were fairly simple: gather as many points as possible in just three minutes. Some participants clearly prepared more than others, but when the two hours of official play ended, representatives from Blacksmith records had edged out online shopping site Superfuture for the title. Once the winning team was crowned, shoppers were invited to play against the competitors for the rest of the night.
