In the two years since Shelley Zalis created the Ipsos Girls’ Lounge concept at International C.E.S., the multipurpose meeting, networking, and relaxation space has become a fixture at large conferences and events around the world and a popular gathering spot for female executives in the fields of advertising, marketing, media, research, and technology. The lounge is traditionally located in a large suite at an event’s host hotel, but now Zalis has a portable option that allows her to recreate the Girls’ Lounge experience in more locations. The pop-up lounge, created by Hadley Media from a shipping container, debuted at the Personal Care Products Conference at the Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Florida, February 22 to 25 in partnership with Unilever.
“Unilever loves how we engage with women to do business with one another, and they wanted to bring that experience to how they engage with their partners at the conference,” Zalis said. While other brands at the conference hosted their meetings inside cabanas around the resort’s pool, Unilever brought them inside the Girls’ Lounge box, which was situated on an oceanfront lawn.
“It’s not just about the box. It was about the feeling and the experience and the intimacy and the warmth and the love that was in there. You went into this box and didn’t want to leave,” Zalis said.
The box, which at its largest measures 38 by 45 feet, can take on various layouts—presented as one large room or divided into multiple spaces, for example. For Unilever, the lounge had three sections: a meeting area with device-charging stations and seating for 20 people, a second area where the company offered foot reflexology and hair styling services, and a third area focused on the brand’s “Project Sunlight” sustainability program. Projections on the Plexiglas walls changed throughout the day to reflect the brand’s messaging.
The portable lounge will next be used as the Ipsos Girls’ Lounge at South by Southwest, where Zalis said it will hold yoga and spin classes, as well as lounge areas and hair and makeup services. After that it will travel to the Own It summit at Georgetown University followed by a three-city tour in partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Girls Who Code.
“At all the big conferences where the events are in hotels, we will always be in presidential suites because it’s just easier for women to come and go,” Zalis said. "But when it’s a destination where there isn’t one main hotel, we’ll do these experiential pop-ups."
