Joining other online retailers in the ever-growing trend of hosting physical, public-facing promotions, Thrillist took its men's fashion site offline with a pop-up shop immediately following the conclusion of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. The effort, a first for JackThreads, was designed to showcase the members-only shopping club's offerings in an non-virtual environment as well as highlight the new facial hair trimmer from partner Gillette.
Thrillist promotions director Alexis Berger and her team worked closely with the merchandising crew at JackThreads to conceive and design the public event, and tapped Empire Entertainment to execute the production elements.
Housed inside a shipping container stationed in Union Square, the temporary store was open to the public Friday and Saturday, and to lure current and prospective members, it displayed and sold new clothes before the items were made available on the Web. The flash-sale site also enticed its mostly male audience by plugging the mini boutique on Thrillist, posting notices on the JackThreads Twitter and Facebook pages, and sending out invitations to existing subscribers. Additionally, signage on the exterior of the metal bunker encouraged passersby to send out their own tweets about the pop-up.
Inside the container, the set up was fairly simple, with the clothing and accessories arranged around one of five looks for spring. The full outfits, which JackThreads gave playful names like "sun-bleached neutrals" and "Parisian nautical," were displayed on poster-size images. To integrate Gillette's new Fusion ProGlide Styler into the promotion, the models in the images all sported facial hair; boxes of the product sat alongside clothing from Ben Sherman, W.E.S.C., and No Excess; and customers received a free trimmer with every purchase.
On an interactive level, a competition, which invited visitors to pose for photos with fake mustaches and beards, gave away a full outfit, and a smartphone app allowed consumers to generate their own look.
