Panasonic created a pop-up shop in a vacant storefront at Coconut Grove’s CocoWalk shopping center Thursday through Saturday. The temporary store is part of a national tour to showcase the home electronics company’s new products for 2010 and attracted about 2,000 people during its three days in Miami.
“This [tour] is a big initiative for us, and 2010 is a big year for Panasonic as we’re putting a lot of focus on our marketing,” said senior marketing manager Kevin Frank. “We’ve been in business for 50 years, but we want to reintroduce ourselves to the public and give consumers a chance to interact with, touch, and feel the new products.”
The company reached out to Connecticut-based integrated marketing company Source Marketing to coordinate the three simultaneous legs of the 15-city tour. The pop-ups first debuted in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles on March 15 before each setup traveled to its designated cities for three days in each location.
The pop-up consisted of various entertainment and educational elements, including a mini living room used to promote Panasonic’s new home entertainment systems with 3-D technology. Company representatives at each of the nine kiosks answered questions and educated attendees about the new products. Additionally, Panasonic partnered with the Digital Photo Academy to provide camera experts to teach guests how to take better pictures and get the most use from the brand’s video and point-and-shoot cameras.
The tour is one part of Panasonic’s year-round marketing plan for the new technologies, a new tactic for 2010 as the company has previously reserved product launches and big marketing pushes for the holidays.
