Pop-up stores belongs to the marketing toolbox as a promotion instrument. Fact is that they have been usually used by brands in the fashion sector to promote a collection, raise awareness in conjunction with another event (for instance the Fashion week), or to touch customers in some particular areas.
Pop-up stores are much less used by players from other sectors and that’s why the initiative of Hello Bank (a brand of BNP Paribas) is so interesting. It will remain open from October 4th until December 20th.
A pop-up shop for geeks and teenagers
When you enter the pop-up shop one thing will certainly strike you : it doesn’t look like a bank. Actually it doesn’t look like anything you may have seen before, except if you follow this blog. The setting of the store resembles indeed very much to three telecom concept stores we have visited in Berlin : those of Base, Deutsche Telekom and O2. By the way all three have made their way to our interactive map of remarkable retail concepts which you can find below.
The latest technologies available
The Hello Bank pop-up store proposes different areas where you can try different technologies. It all starts with taking a bracelet with a RFID chip and to link it to your Facebook account. When you do this, Hello Bank gets your contact details (and can recontact you of course) and you can start playing around. You have the choice between creating your very own personalized tee shirt on touch screens, scan your body to visualize your hologram and eventually create a 3D scan of yourself. The 3D technology employed is proposed by BotMaker which is the brand that was also used in LeFab Shop pop-up store @ Le BHV. The 3D printing quality is decent, yet has nothing to compare with what you can expect from TwinKind.
Gesture recognition is also used in the popup store. A central table welcomes you at the entrance of the store and is used as an information panel over the bank (it’s actually the only tangible link with the bank !). Next to the bar (where you can have a coffee, sip a cold drink or eat a sandwich) a Kinetic station is installed that will give you a 1€ discount if you exercise a little bit.
A coworking space
On the first floor a coworking space has been installed (exactly like in the Berlin Base store). Hello Bank will by the way associate itself to the startup weekend and will welcome entrepreneurs from October 10th to 12th.
Conclusion
Hello Bank chose to follow a side-door marketing strategy to recruit new customers. In other words it attracts people by proposing an environment that is familiar to some segments of the population. Those segments are the primary targets of the bank.
Looking at the store setting you immediately understand that the target group is made of geeks, young technology addicts and e-entrepreneurs.
Posted in Marketing, Strategy.
