Pop-up event strategies—how Poppi, Cetaphil and others are reaching Gen Z and building brand communities

Rhode’s “pocket-sized pop-up” became a surprise hit this summer, transforming a tiny storefront in New York into a must-visit destination for beauty lovers. Over 10 days in June and July, crowds lined a block in SoHo, eager to scoop up the brand’s newly launched pocket blushes and limited-edition lip balms. The buzz stretched far beyond the streets, with TikTok and Instagram flooded by videos of fans showing off their Rhode hauls or chronicling their hours-long wait just to step inside. Influencers—including Rhode Founder and Creative Director Hailey Bieber—also offered early looks from an exclusive preview party, fueling the frenzy across social media. By the time the pop-up opened to the public, Rhode wasn’t just selling beauty products—it was creating a cultural moment. @rhode rhode pop-up 🫶 nyc. our pocket-sized pop-up officially opens today. we can’t wait for you to see the space 🩷 when: june 24th through july 3rd, from 11am-7pm daily where: 127 greene st. new york, ny 10012 ♬ original sound - rhode skin Rhode’s activation is perhaps the most viral example of a broader trend shaping the influencer marketing strategies of several brands, including Poppi, Cetaphil, 818 Tequila and Vuori. In recent months, a growing number of brands have sharpened their focus on pop-ups and other brand activations, adopting a two-pronged experiential strategy: giving Gen Z consumers the in-person experiences they want and turning those activations into social media moments with the help of influencers. “At the end of the day, we live on social media—everyone does—and nowadays, you kind of can’t get away with just doing an in-real-life event,” Allison Ellsworth, co-founder and chief brand officer at Poppi, told Ad Age. “Social media kind of feels like a reality show now. Everyone knows what’s going on and they want to be a part of it.” Sign up for Ad Age’s Influencer Marketing newsletter here Last month, the prebiotic soda brand saw over 2,500 consumers line up outside the bright red storefront of its “Poppi World” pop-up in New York celebrating the launch of its Cherry Cola flavor, Ellsworth said. Inside, consumers could sample the new soda and purchase cherry-themed clothing and accessories from a merch collection of 30 items created for the pop-up—including a red version of the brand’s viral sweatsuits, she said. Poppi extensively promoted the three-day activation with a mix of social content; posters plastered to construction scaffolding and cherry-shaped stickers on SoHo sidewalks near the pop-up; and a takeover of a subway station just a few steps from the Poppi World storefront, featuring digital and physical signage. The exclusive influencer party Poppi hosted the night before the pop-up opened to the public, however, generated the most awareness of the brand’s activation by far. @drinkpoppi - [ ] unmatchable vibes, iconic people, and enough cherry cola to fill the empire State building… check ✅ #drinkpoppi #poppisoda #sodasback #poppiworld #cherrycola #cherrycolapoppi #poppiworld #newflavor #newflavorlaunch #spotted #fyp #foryou #fy ♬ original sound - Drink Poppi Over 350 content creators and celebrities attended the party, including beauty influencer Monet McMichael; Serena Page and Kordell Beckham, the winning couple of the sixth season of “Love Island USA”; actress and model Emily Ratajkowski; Jake Shane, a comedy creator and podcast host; and rapper 50 Cent, who delivered a surprise performance at the party. Ellsworth and the Poppi team purposely timed the launch party to New York Fashion Week, when many influencers and celebrities would already be in the city, to ensure the highest possible turnout, she said. “The reason we do the influencer event the night before is because then it starts to go viral online,” Ellsworth said. “It’s on everyone’s For You page. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my goodness. What is this that all these creators are talking about? I have to go see it for myself.’” Together, the famous partygoers produced over 1,200 social posts that collectively garnered nearly 65 million impressions, according to data from Poppi—all before Poppi World had officially opened its doors. Ultimately, Poppi World—along with the brand’s Los Angeles “Poppi Mart” pop-up in January, which adhered to a similar “creators plus community” strategy—was aimed at Poppi’s brand community, Ellsworth said. Because Poppi launched the same month as the beginning of coronavirus lockdowns, the brand “really didn’t have the opportunity to do a ton of real-life [events]” until recently, she said. @homemadebyjane Pop off @Poppi 🍓🫐🫧 #poppi #poppimart #drinkpoppi #newflavor ♬ love on the brain sped up - xxtristanxo Community over commerce Poppi isn’t the only brand honing in on pop-ups and other brand activations. Dozens of beauty and skin care brands began contacting creators represented by talent agency Sixteenth (formerly Whalar Talent) in late 2023 about attending these pop-up events, said Victoria Bachan, the president of Sixteenth. Now, it’s gotten to a point where “these events are popping up in talent inboxes multiple times a week,” Bachan said. About half of these brands reach out to creators offering to pay them in exchange for dropping by the pop-up and producing social content about their experience, while the other half instead provides creators free products or experiences tied to the activation as compensation, she said. “I think we’re seeing [pop-ups] come back just because the engagement rate that you have, one-to-one, with your community is so much higher and meaningful … when you look at it from an online versus offline comparison,” she said. On top of the content produced by influencers attending an activation, pop-ups also prompt a flood of user-generated content from everyday consumers experiencing the activation. This provides brands “a different level of return on investment” than they would typically see from an influencer push without an in-person element, Bachan said. Many brands also hand out free products or product samples to both influencers and consumers at their pop-ups, which can be a “huge draw” for consumers in particular, she added. Like PR packages brands mail to influencers in hopes that their products will be featured in the influencers’ content, brands gifting products to a large group of influencers and consumers via a pop-up could similarly generate a plethora of social posts highlighting those products—even if the impact isn’t immediate, she said. Brand activations “are definitely worth doing even when you’re not factoring in sales as a direct result,” said Brandon Wagoner, senior director of client services at influencer marketing agency Fohr. Like Bachan, Wagoner agrees the earned media that comes out of a pop-up can be “huge.” At an activation that Fohr organized for Aerie last year at the TWA Hotel, all of the influencers in attendance posted five times more social content than their contract with the brand required, he said. “That generates a lot of EMV (earned media value), and those influencers get a better understanding of the brand and have more excitement and loyalty for it,” Wagoner said. “That’s priceless.” When Poppi embarked on an experiential marketing blitz earlier this year—which included activations at music festivals such as Stagecoach and Coachella—the primary goal was to generate brand awareness through influencer and consumer content, rather than drive sales of the products or merchandise offered at the events, Ellsworth said. The brand began to expand the role of brand activations in its marketing strategy after it saw significant community turnout at each event, she said. Poppi Mart, for instance, drew thousands of consumers in three days, prompting the brand to spring for a larger venue for Poppi World. @selenamirchi poppi world did not dissappoint #poppi #nyfw #poppisponserus @Poppi ♬ 9TS x Liverpool Street in the Rain - 𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒌🌙® “If we have influencers there spreading the word out to their followers, it just brings more community into the brand, at the end of the day. And it’s an amazing opportunity for us to work with creators who want to build those authentic relationships [with us], but then to also get the reach through their audience to build more consumers and more community love,” Ellsworth said. Cetaphil also centers its pop-ups on its brand community—but having influencers involved in those pop-ups leads to longer lines at the door, said Philip Durocher, general manager at Cetaphil’s parent company Galderma. At its one-day “Softest Spot in the City” pop-up in New York last month, celebrating the launch of a new exfoliating product line, Cetaphil made influencer Katie Fang, its newly named brand ambassador and the face of the new product line, the star of the show. Cetaphil effectively split the day in half, inviting over 40 beauty and skin care influencers (including Erica Ha, Jasmine Adetunji and Olivia Giannella) to a private event in the morning where Fang and dermatologist influencer Dr. Katie Beleznay did a live Q&A session about the new product line, Durocher said. When the space opened to the public at noon, consumers (who started lining up at 7 a.m. ET, Durocher said) were able to do a meet-and-greet with Fang or participate in other “soft” activities such as rolling around on a giant bed covered in pillows or eating soft-serve ice cream, he said. @cetaphil A walk through Dr. Katie't softest spots at our Gentle Exfoliators launch event…🍦⭐ ↘ Dr. Katie Beleznay / @drkatiebeleznay ↘ Katie Fang / @katiefanggg #sensitiveskin #skincareroutine #Cetaphil #cetagirl ♬ original sound - Cetaphil “It’s not cheap to put on an event like that,” he said, without disclosing the cost. “So, our thought was really, how do we build the breadth of it so that it’s not only a physical moment, but it’s also a shareable moment, whether it's consumers authentically posting their selfie with Katie or the products that they got, or influencers helping to amplify our voice beyond that day to their fans, and really build awareness of our newest innovation. It just sort of ripples out and amplifies the day into something much bigger than the 1,000 people that attended.” The group of influencers invited to the pop-up generated over 110 posts with a combined potential reach of over 29 million, according to Cetaphil data. Cetaphil has been steadily investing in experiential marketing as it continues to court Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers, hosting two additional New York pop-ups over the past year, Durocher said. “And at all those events, there are lines literally around the block,” he said. That shows “people like our brand, love our brand, and are willing to wait hours to be able to experience the brand. And I think that's just something that you just can't replicate in the store or the in the digital world.” Also read: Marketing to Gen Alpha, Gen Z and millennials consumers NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today Gen Z craves community Indeed, Gen Z consumers are yearning for more opportunities to interact with brands in person rather than on social media. A July report from youth market research firm YPulse revealed that 71% of 13- to 39-year-old consumers are interested in shopping at brand pop-ups or attending other experiential activations, “especially when they’re centered around pop culture moments.” The desire to engage with brands through in-person events was highest among 18- to 24-year-old consumers, 69% of whom expressed interest in attending a brand activation. Additionally, the vast majority (77%) of the survey’s more than 1,500 respondents, agreed brands should tie experiential activations and product launches to pop culture moments, such as a “themed pop-up for a concert.” Gen Z consumers, in particular, appreciate pop-ups at live music events such as festivals and concerts, with almost two-thirds reporting they’ve been swayed to buy an item at a live music event due to a brand’s advertisement or pop-up, according to a recent report from marketing and advertising agency Merge. The desire for in-person experiences among young consumers is fueling a “resurgence of experiential” marketing, which is simultaneously driving brands to extend more of their influencer partnerships into the physical world, said Christina Westley, head of influencer marketing at PepsiCo. “Brands now are thinking strategically on [activations] being more than just like, ‘Oh, we’ll just invite people to get attendance,’ but also, ‘How do we actually integrate talent in the most strategic way?’” she told Ad Age. “And does that mean inviting multiple influencers, or is that crafting an experience around one or a smaller number of influencers?” Experiential marketing has played a pivotal role in 818 Tequila’s marketing since it was founded by influencer and model Kendall Jenner three years ago, said the brand’s Chief Marketing Officer Kathleen Braine. After all, due to regulations around advertising in the alcohol industry, “if you’re wanting to have that direct connection with a consumer, [experiential] is kind of one of the main avenues that you can do that IRL as an alcohol brand,” she said. But in the past year, the brand has evolved its approach to brand activations to “add the influencer component to them in a more meaningful way,” she said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 💞SHANNON💞 (@shan.nyan) Rather than honing in on mega-influencers or celebrities, however, 818’s focus is instead on micro- and nano-influencers who create social content as a part-time endeavor, Braine said. “To me, opening the doors to both consumers and influencers just makes sense, because the line has become really blurred,” she said. “There’s less of a line now between your average consumer and who could be defined as an influencer or a creator. And we want to make sure anyone that’s a brand fan and part of our brand community can experience the product and can experience 818. So, we want to give all consumers that are big fans of us that ‘influencer experience’—whether they have 100,000 followers or 2,000 followers.” At its saloon-inspired Coachella pop-up, “The Outpost,” roughly 70% of attendees were consumers, with the remaining 30% largely composed of a small roster of micro-influencers who are “friends of the brand,” Braine said. The company also recently wrapped up its third college tour campaign last month, hosting parties at several college bars across the Southwest. Jenner’s presence across these parties has generated a flurry of social content from students capturing photos or videos of the reality TV star. @papibrum Kendall Jenner at 818's new College Tour at 'Good Bull Ice House' Bar in College Station, Texas. #kendalljenner #818 #texas #foryoupage #blonde #hair #makeup #outfit #fyp #fy ♬ orijinal ses - ᴏʟᴅ ꜱᴄʜᴏᴏʟ 🇦🇿 Activewear brand Vuori also leverages pop-ups as a community-building strategy, although it largely focuses those efforts on its “V1 community” of brand ambassadors who include athletes, personal trainers, pilates instructors and other creators in the realm of fitness, Vuori’s CMO Karen Riley-Grant said in an email. In late September, the brand launched its “Find Your Comfort” pop-up in New York with an exclusive event for media and its community of ambassadors before opening the space up to the public two days later, she said. The pop-up included a series of “mindful movement” classes, which all hit capacity on participants just 24 hours after sign-ups opened, Riley-Grant said. Nearly 900 consumers entered the pop-up space, which also housed items from Vuori’s new clothing collection and photo op backdrops, she said—and many of those consumers stood in the queue to enter the space for over two hours. “These experiences are also important touchpoints to continue building these relationships and ensuring that these individuals are involved in the moments that bring our campaigns to life,” Riley-Grant said. “We also know that these influencers are individuals that our customers look to for lifestyle inspiration, so having them involved helps to further the credibility of our efforts among our customer base. Providing a special one-of-a-kind experience is a way to bring both audiences into the brand.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Vuori (@vuoriclothing) This trend of brands linking their community-oriented activations with influencer partnerships has accelerated over the past month, in particular. Brands such as Owala, Fishwife and Beyoncé’s haircare brand Cécred have all brought influencers and consumers together at their first pop-up events across New York and Los Angeles in recent weeks. Stanley Chief Brand Officer Graham Nearn also recently told Ad Age the brand is prioritizing experiential marketing to grow Stanley beyond its moment in the social media spotlight late last year. And both Poppi’s Ellsworth and Cetaphil’s Durocher said their brands plan to make star-studded pop-up events a larger part of their marketing strategies going forward. “Having a spokesperson that is well-known just takes [a pop-up] up a notch,” Durocher said. “So, it’s something that we'll be looking to do more of, whether it's with Katie [Fang] or whoever we work with next.”

Pop-up event strategies—how Poppi, Cetaphil and others are reaching Gen Z and building brand communities

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