If you head to a high-end hotel or buzzing beach club this summer, you might find yourself stumbling across an immersive experience from one of the world’s leading luxury houses. This is no accident. Luxury brands have long been looking for ways to establish themselves as full-on lifestyle brands – and this summer, they’re doing it via experiential pop-ups.   

Of course, this isn’t the first time they’ve dipped their toes into the hospitality industry. Just think of London’s shimmering Bvlgari Hotel or the suave Armani Hotel in Dubai. When they opened in the 2010s, it marked a new era of fashion houses becoming true lifestyle icons – creating immersive, branded worlds for their customers to explore in the process. And now those immersive worlds are expanding as pop-ups pick up steam.  

Pop-ups are on the up. 

To put it simply: pop-ups are popping off. But to put it numerically: the Guardian reported an 18% rise in the amount of brand pop-ups from 2022–2023, and we expect this figure to continue rising. However, these temporary environments aren’t just designed to sell products. They create a physical space in which brands can create core memories with customers – which, one study suggests, makes 70% of consumers feel more connected to the company, thus increasing their likelihood of spending.  

Take Louis Vuitton’s two-week takeover of Casa Neos in Miami as an example. Inspired by LV’s By The Pool resort collection, the hotel’s dock, restaurant patio, poolside, and terraces were all plastered with tangerine and fuchsia LV motifs, and a dedicated boutique offered exclusive pieces from the new collection. On the surface, this simply provided visitors with an Instagrammable backdrop for their summer snaps. But on a deeper level, it brought an immersive version of the LV summer story directly to customers, expanding the brand touchpoints beyond standard retail and physically positioning it within the lifestyle space.  

The magic of mobile marketing. 

However, brands aren’t just popping up in one place. A trend we’ve spotted over the last couple of years is mobile pop-ups that bring the house’s stories to where their customers are – or, in many cases, where their customers aren’t. Think Gucci’s free coffee pop-ups (there’s currently a Gucci-branded airstream in East Hampton), Dolce&Gabbana’s Sicilian-style mobile showroom, or Veuve Clicquot’s Clicq’ Up Lounge at Art Basel. 

These mobile experiences don’t have to be sales-oriented to be successful. In fact, picking up a complimentary coffee on your lunch break or sipping a glass of freshly poured fizz between shows are exactly the kinds of experiences that make customers feel good. And customers that feel good about a brand are likely to remember the brand – and share snaps of the pop-up on their social channels. This creates buzz, brand loyalty, and a bigger brand presence. Win, win.  

Brand houses for brand awareness. 

We’re also seeing more brand houses this year – which, as you might have gathered, are experiential venues designed to physically connect customers with brands. Unlike traditional pop-ups, these tend to be larger standalone venues that bring the brand to life – and they’re rapidly becoming integral elements of the experience economy. 

To give a topical example, we produced Omega House for the Olympic Games in 2012 and 2016. As Omega was – and still is – the official timepiece partner of the games, hosting its brand house at the Olympics just made sense. So, we carefully curated every element to tell the Omega story – from designing 16 bespoke rooms to putting on 12 exclusive events. The result? Omega House was the most sought-after membership during the 2016 Olympics – now that’s what we call brand awareness.  

Pop-ups can create profitable progression.  

So far, we’ve given a lot of thought to customer-focused pop-ups. But it’s important to remember that pop-ups can also be designed to boost employee engagement – after all, your staff are the faces of the company, and they need to believe in it in order to embody it and sell its lifestyle to customers.  

Like when we orchestrated a two-day brand immersion for a luxury fashion brand in Abu Dhabi. We brought together boutique and headquarter staff from across India and the Middle East, who attended workshops, presentations, shows, and a themed evening party – all designed to immerse them in the brand’s universe. And, as well as increasing the performance of the attendees, events like this also help businesses to attract top talent – creating a continuous cycle of growth and profitable progression.  

The bottom line. 

Whether a mobile coffee machine or an all-in brand house, what ultimately makes a pop-up successful is a commitment to storytelling. Every detail must be carefully curated to transport the customer on a journey of your business’s choosing, making the customer feel like an active character in your universe. And, as we all know, consumers that feel emotionally connected to brands are more likely to be loyal to them and become customers for life.  

But the curtains don’t close doesn’t end when people leave the space. Pop-ups provide a great opportunity to capture vast amounts of data – for example, you could run a competition that visitors can enter by inputting their email addresses. The result? A large network of potential customers that you can remarket to in future.  

And if you’re in the market for a memorable, multi-sensory pop-up, you’re in the right place. Our award-winning team creates unparalleled, authentic experiences that build brand loyalty and boost brand fame. Discover more about us here.