To celebrate and highlight its redesigned website, Lacoste, in accordance with its new brand platform, “Life is a Beautiful Sport,” partnered with GQ magazine to stage a 360-degree platform that encompassed all its major initiatives. A weekend-long pop-up served to highlight the fashion label’s passion points and new digital flagship while providing an interactive experience for V.I.P. guests and passersby alike.
“The proposal consisted of mood boards and inspiration imagery that honed in on a distinct look and feel of the store to bring the Lacoste and GQ partnership to life,” said Kyra Taurman, creative producer at Good Sense & Company, who worked with Jade Ruzzo, director of strategic partnerships at GQ, and Shany Ellenberg, director of retail and trade marketing at Lacoste.
“Our goal was to create an immersive, virtual reality of the digital flagship, bringing to life Lacoste’s champion sporting heritage and the Fall/Winter 2014 collections,” added Ellenberg.
Nearly 2,000 attendees flocked to the meatpacking district pop-up, erected in a high-traffic thoroughfare. The space itself mimicked a white gallery, with mirrored surfaces reflecting the crisp lines of white neon highlighted with pops of moss and bright colors, peppered throughout with technology. Inside, across two levels, Instagrammable moments like a shirt wall and sweeping polo display complemented hands-on elements like a mini golf “Swing Clinic,” a tennis ball “Wave Pendulum,” a “Listening Wall” brought to life by the app Spring, and even a basement “Sport Studio” that offered fitness classes.
“It was imperative to make the pop-up interactive; we didn’t want to put on an art show,” Ellenberg said. “We wanted to create memorable experiences tying emotion and the notion of lifestyle to our brand; when someone is engaged both physically and mentally in an activity, this is when a brand message sticks.”
Ellenberg declined to disclose the cost of the pop-up, but did confirm it was one of Lacoste’s major 2014 initiatives and was staged with GQ, a core partner in its media plan. The pop-up, six months in the planning, took approximately one week to build, with a two-day load out.
