Harrods: The Rise of the Pop-Up

[Music] From consumer insights across the world to the latest tactics and trends, you're listening to Leap into Luxury, the go-to marketing podcast for Luxury Brands. I'm Natalie and today we're talking to Sean Pellets, marketing executive at Harrods. Sean brings a wealth of experience in luxury retail, having previously worked for renowned brands like Bloomingdale's and the White Company. With a keen eye for brand partnerships and activations, Sean is a master at balancing the unique needs of both brand and retailers. Today we'll be hearing her insights on navigating the complexities of luxury pop-ups and creating unforgettable shopping experiences for the modern luxury consumer. Welcome Sean, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, I'm super excited to be here. It's pleasure, we're really happy to have you here and love unforgettable shopping experience on a luxury space, so let's see where we go. So you're at Harrods now, how do you balance such a distinctive brand identity as Harrods with a unique aesthetic of a pop-up? Because I imagine there's a bit of a balance to be had there, where you want a cohesive and elevated shopping experience for the consumer, but you also have to navigate representing Harrods and the brand. Yeah, I think it's always interesting to keep Harrods heritage with everything we do. With a lot of the brands, they already know the heritage, they're very excited to be working with Harrods, which always does help. I think where Harrods is now trying to go, we have to look at that more modern customer, yeah, we have a huge history, but we need to keep with the time, so what is everyone else doing, the other big department stores, and our brand partners on their own? So it's looking at if you're going to come to us as a big brand, what can we do together to make it bigger, to make it better than anyone else has it? So I think it's really interesting to see their objectives, we always look at what they want to do, what their brand values are. If their brand values, for example, didn't align with ours at all, it wouldn't be a partnership, we wouldn't be able to execute something, you know, that's authentic, because you can tell when something is forced, and something is just there for the sake of it, rather than being there because you want your customer to enjoy it, or you're trying to get a new customer into store. Stop, this is okay, so point one, we're already stopping at point one, and I'm already like, how did this not occur to me? Harrods are trying to bring themselves into the modern world, or trying to kind of come across as fresh and new, but they obviously have their core audience consumer, and their brand identity, it's been built over hundreds of years. It didn't occur to me that Pop-Ox could work the other way, where it's actually helping Harrods, so it's a really great way of bringing a fresh and kind of new vibe, or new energy to the floor. Do you have any specific strategies when you're trying to find these brands to partner with, so that they do align with the Harrods audience, but they do bring that new energy? I think a lot of brands help by giving us exclusives, that always helps, because we have something that someone else doesn't have. It has that energy. I think a lot of super brands, those bigger brands are becoming a lot more innovative, they're taking a lot more to digital. So with us, again, it's collaborating from a digital perspective, and then bringing that to a Pop-Ox space in real life. So you may have seen last year, we did a Pop-Ox with acne studios and Harrods, but they went crazy on digital, wrapping their whole scarf around the building and things like that. So again, that's where it's showing where that younger customer needs to come in, because we have different profiles. Obviously, we have a huge GCC client, but we also have a really high clientele that is that local affluent. A bit younger, they're coming in. You know, we're right by Night's Ridge Tube Station. It's not always just, you know, obviously, we have that huge VIP, but also people like me, they were also just coming in. You're a VIP. Yeah, maybe I have. You are, you are. And I guess looking at the identity of Harrods, it is really different to Bloomingdale's, for example, where you've previously went. So do the strategies of Pop-Ox and brand partnerships then differ between those two retailers if you're able to disclose this? Or are there any factors that influence one more than the other, for example? I think it's really interesting with Bloomingdale's in Dubai, because you have obviously Bloomingdale's in New York, and then you have it in Dubai and also in Kuwait, which I never knew until I got there. And they sit like in Dubai is completely different to New York. We weren't working hand-in-hand. I didn't know what New York was doing. They didn't really know what we were doing, apart from the one yearly roundup. So we had different strategies completely to how they operated. I think we're Bloomingdale's located in Dubai more. It's known as Torris more. So we were really focusing on how do we get locals, expats, who actually lived there to come into Dubai more for starters, because no one wants to go there, because it's so busy, there's so much traffic. So yeah, no one wants to go there. So we had to think of what are the brands that locals like. So a lot of strategy on the Bloomingdale side is to partner with local brands and Marathi brands, which you definitely, I don't think, here are outside the GCC too much. So that was a really great strategy from them. That brings in that local client GCC obviously have a lot of money to spend their key shoppers. So we did a key sort of moment with a jewelry brand, which did really well. She bought in all her relatives, friends at Marathi people. So it was really great from that perspective, I think from Haras, it's obviously a tourist place, but like you don't call it like Torris more as we did in Bloomingdale's. It's sort of a dope and to everyone. Everyone always wants to go. It kind of has that magic to see what we're doing. So I think from Haras, it's more looking at, how can we be completely different? How can we better than anyone else? I think when looking at pop-ups with Bloomingdale's, it was very much, does the people who live here or not? So how does that difference impact how you're curating or the creative execution of these pop-ups? Obviously you've got the more local stair for Bloomingdale's and the vibrant, but those international clientele are huge for Haras. It must be a little bit perhaps harder to, to execute a specific vision for them. Yeah, I think, well, brands usually tell us their vision. You know, we're partners, it's not like I'm always leading it from Haras or Bloomingdale's perspective. Like the brand will be the one who has like an exclusive caps. You also have to really want to push in where that partnership comes in as well. We have like the clientele, a base where we can support through our channels and things like that. We have those valuable customer insights that maybe our brand partners don't have, which is why it always works so well. From a Haras perspective, I think from Bloomingdale's it's on a much smaller scale in the UAE, any way compared to New York. It's still, I don't think we had found yet where that local customer was coming in, especially from a fashion perspective. I was also on home, which I'd never done before at home department. I think it was very tricky to navigate that. I'd have loved to have helped with that. I love it. I love it. I was so very cushioned. [LAUGHTER] That completely makes sense, because you've got, let you say, at Haras, such a deep understanding of your customer, and as such a strong customer base, I know a few years ago, Haras invested really heavily in customer modeling and understanding all of the customer profiles, which I imagine is invaluable to a brand that you may be partnering with. You are, in fairness, I would say, the King's and Queens of brand activations and retail the Loro Piana at Christmas was mind blowing. So you must see all the time pop-ups that are really successful. What would you say are the elements that contribute the most to that? And what is that secret source that makes something super memorable? I think going as big and bold as you can, whilst keeping to your brand identity, I think what made Loro Piana so great was it was them. They kept to their colours, their very neutral tone, but did it on such a huge scale, which was great, I think, beauty brands at the minute, another such great example who are doing pop-ups, like Road, for example, who may not have any physical spaces anywhere, but anything they do is great, like going into different countries with their pop-ups and things like that, I think, online brands are tapping into that retail space just through pop-ups. So they don't even have that retail store yet, any of that space. I think pop-ups shows them before they buy into retail or rent anywhere in New York, London, Paris. Is this going to work? So I think pop-ups really show that. I think a lot of brands do gift with purchase. That's instantly making it memorable. I like getting a gift. Most people love getting a gift. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't like that. So as soon as you've got that, you're like, oh, I love this brand. Then you follow them instantly. You might see what they do next. You might get another gift. You may get something interesting. So how would you track the success of a pop-up? Firstly, is that something you would do as Harrods or as Blooming Days or as the home of the pop-up? Or is that something that's put on that brand? How is that tracked? I mean, yes, of course, it's tracked. We're all doing it for a reason whether it's brand awareness, whether it's sales or if they just want traffic to the store. It depends on the brand and what they're doing. But yes, it's certainly tracked through sales. Also, if they're online, you can track if they're buying online, just how many clicks to their website, social engagements, things like that. Also, in Harrods, it's very high tech. You can count how many people are coming into the store through the doors. So for example, I'll be able to tell a brand when a footfall is really high, which will work for them compared to when it's not, especially if a menswear brand, I can tell them when it's really high on second floor, when it's a bit quieter when people are traveling. So that's another metric that we track that people probably don't even think of. Yeah, that's really interesting. And do you see that availability of data? Do you think that that kind of informs how the brands will then measure their success and that makes how it works? and even stronger partner or they tend to have their ideas set in stone before they come to you. I think it's a combination of things so the brands obviously have a really strong relationship with the buying teams so from there the buyers obviously know the product a lot better than I would for example and the price points so the buyers and then we'll discuss a nice and they all sort of think of you know maybe the take home what they should have achieved after this pop-up so they're the ones who will really be able to drive like without these pop-ups it's not just from a marketing thing like I'm working on one now but I rely on my relationship with buyers heavily because they know the product inside and out they might speak to the brand a bit more than me on that sort of thing that I get broke to in as soon as like the market seems needed or an event but up until that point I haven't really been in the conversation so right now we're currently planning a pop-up for April won't say who it is but it's a brand to I haven't seen be in such a big pop-up space before so it's really exciting and we're going to get this out of you before yeah it's a good brand to I'm really excited because it's not one of the usual ones you would have seen it in such a big space in Harrod so I'm relying on the buyers to be able to what are your KPIs that versus mine just to make sure you know as a brand partner we don't want to lose that trust with any of our brands yeah completely that makes sense okay so we've talked there about what makes a pop-up great what would you advise as pitfalls that brands should avoid when they're planning an executing a pop-up we're not going to name any names but what kind if you were giving advice to a brand which I'm sure you do often what would you say they should not do do it at the wrong time some brands will like get the money and the calendar obviously in Harrod's books out very quickly and they may just be a slot in a month that you know say for example swimwear you're a swimwear brand and we only had November I would be like don't do it in November there's no point people are coming for coats hats scarves like let's not we can maybe wait until the next year if there's a gap but sometimes brands just think I want to pop up in blue minels I want to pop up in Harrod's it sounds great like yet does but you're going to invest all this money all this production cost that are involved there's so much behind the scenes and you're not going to get out what you're hoping so I'd say the main thing is to not rush it even if there's a gap you know we can wait until when it suits you I would never recommend to any of our partners to do something at the wrong time that's because that's really interesting we did a pop-up with a non-alcoholic sparkling wine that we launched them back a few years ago into Selfridges they're called French Bloom and they launched in January and they actually because the timing was so good which dried out in January they became the best selling product in the wine shop for that month and that they only launched then so I think you're so right timing is completely key because it can really make or break the success of it yeah exactly can you share any instances where a pop-up didn't meet expectations yeah I can I mean I won't name names can you? but again it was that that timing thing and yeah it was what I just said the timing wasn't right I think maybe the bram wasn't right for that certain space and it's also looking at the price point so if you have a pop-up for example in the middle of the accessories room and you're surrounded by Prada and Fendi you want to be with those brides who are also there you have that shopper who's able to afford that higher price point maybe coming in as a brides who's on a bit of a lower price point yeah that space is great but it's maybe not a chatting that customer that you want so that was a time when we saw something like that but they still did really well I just would have liked them to have seen them done better because when you work with them so often you build a good relationship you want them to succeed as much as they do so that's interesting the because the scale of Harris is one of the best things about it but I hadn't even considered how important placement within the store must then be yeah really is that we have different doors all around sort of the store as you probably know so looking at the back of Basil Street is where we're seeing the affluent customers where the chauffeur drop off is so that's one of the two. And then I always say again for that younger customer is that door five one hands cre as I'm right outside which one is where I'm going. Yes, if you want a rich man go with a chauffeur for a while. I'm very sorry. I'm pretty too late. If any of your friends do. Amazing. Have you got then any examples of brands who really nailed the pop-up brief and if you do what would you say that they did that made it such a wild success and you respect about Laura Piana earlier so any others? So I can't take any credit for Laura Piana by the way. I think a really great one that we did was the Scaper-Elli pop-up in Harrods. I don't know if you sorry I think it was the year before that. Amazing. Yeah I think it was great because at that time they were only in Paris and physical spaces I mean and in Harrods so that pop-up was really amazing for those customers who want Scaper-Elli. I think at the time you know they've really blown up in the pivoted mass and yeah that's huge. At that time I personally didn't really know who they were but I think that awareness in being such a prominent space they were in again that luxurious space on the ground floor and accessories. It was so great for them because there's a huge foot for people who are knowing who they are. Their distinct colors of black and gold and the key chain that was on the front of it really showed who they were. I think from there yeah they really their brand presence was known. You just sort of from the outside and then from there like now I can spot Scaper-Elli anywhere from that and then obviously the sales was good I think for the pop-up it's always good to do an event that sort of supports it on the side which is what we did for VIC clients again it really depends the brand if it's more sort of entry brand where you know lots of people shopped them it's better to do an event near that's bigger maybe doing influences in press but for Scaper-Elli that you know definitely not sort of their clients so it was all sort of our high VIPs those who shopped with Scaper-Elli those who at that price point maybe not shopping with them but could potentially be there it was really great to people watch I loved being I was just watching it wow it's so cool yeah we work with Diora loss and I know they did a couple of years ago which was also amazing and they invested at the time in kind of a tailored media campaign on the out of home surrounding Harrods do you notice a lot of brands doing things like that to support as well as events yeah they've loved the out of home the night bridge tube station they're always together I mean even when you were just talking about the VR piece the acne studios did you said they used AR to wrap the building yeah I mean it's fantastic like do you've got to incorporate all those different channels but this leads me nicely on to my next question actually because I hate to take you all back there mentally but rewind to COVID which which was a terrible time for a lot of brick and mortar stores at a terrible time I imagine for for Harrods as well because tourism was down that a lot of brands were kind of shifting their budgets to online to digital to other methods of marketing budgets were just sliced and chopped and cut and it took a really long time for them to be restored I don't even know if they fully have been restored or whether we've just introduced a load more channels and platforms of ways that they can market now that it's quite hard to rely on just one pocket budget for all of those but we are seeing and have been seeing over the last couple of years since an uplift in that experiential activity in the pop-up activity and stuff why do you think in your words because I know how I'd answer this but why do you think that luxury brands are continuing to invest in pop-ups even though they can be quite pricey endeavors I think they're great because they're bringing people back into their stores I think there were a time especially for luxury brands was anyone really going inside them anymore unless you were a regular client and you were waiting for every like collection to drop I for one would never go inside I would look from the windows and never go in but I think pop-up pop-ups make them a lot more accessible a lot less scary if you like that yeah they're high price points but it makes you think I really like that I like the look of it I'd like to get that you know one day maybe if you can't get it now and those you can I think I think there was a report a while ago actually saying how much stores especially like super brands were struggling across the world at this point because it wasn't innovative like not they weren't doing much that you have your store on Bond Street but what does that mean like you're not bringing anyone to it that's why things kind of changed isn't it where it stopped just being a store within a store and started being an experience a whole full brand experience and you get so many benefits or so many benefits as a brand when you do something like that when you offer that experience versus just a you know the shop to shop in I think social media might be contributing to this as well because the pop-up making something an event and activation really drives that kind of organic UGC content that every brand dreams off it's although I agree it is a really costly endeavor upfront production costs certainly a quite yeah not for the faint hearted let's say but what's not to be ignored is all the surrounding PR and awareness is driven by that and I personally if I was going to answer the question I'm not the guest but just to add my two cents I would say that that must be surely a really big driving factor for brands and marketers yeah I would totally agree like we ride heavily like on our PR team to help us especially with influencers and things like that if it's like a brand launch or anything I think a brand like Jacques Amousse is like really key for that, like they kind of went off-raid off for a while. They use like AI to an insane level. And now everyone's speaking about them. Everyone's like, how can I do what Jacques Amousse do? But for my brand. So I think they're a great example of someone who's just made an absolute comeback through those digital platforms. Yeah, and I'm an absolute example of someone who went and bought that bag as a direct shot of that. It works. It's a big deal. You fell for it. I'm glad we can't. Like I, I, I, I say it every single episode that we have, we can't disregard brand awareness, long-term brand loyalty, long-term brand positive sentiment. And that's something that these experiences do as well. It's not trackable. I mean, I, I say this in every episode, I kid you not, Sean. [LAUGHTER] That I know it is not trackable, but it's so important. And actually pop-ups and these experiences are one of the best drivers for that long-term brand loyalty. Yeah. I totally agree. Like I bought my first, like, Acne Studios Scar from a pop-up. And then from now, I, I will now shop with them if I like something. So yeah, I think it really is creating like an immersive experience. Because sometimes just going to a store is like a bit, can't be boring. Like I used to hate shopping. But now it's a lot more of an experience. I enjoy it. Same with online as well. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there was the boom of everything turning to online. And how do you replicate that personal experience from being in store online? You just, it's, it's much harder to do. It's also quite overwhelming online. There's only so many pages I can scroll through sometimes. You do. OK. How do you envision the future of retail? What, what do you think pop-ups will evolve into? Do you think they'll continue to play a role in shaping the shopper experience? I think they absolutely will. I think because it's proving to be successful over and over and over again. There's no reason for it to stop. I think brands are just thinking of ways to do it bigger and better. Like I know, a lot of brands are wanting to do it out of home. Like in major cities. From where I've been speaking with brands already, planning for the year, it seems like they're wanting to go on global scales with pop-ups. So again, having, what roads did, having one sort of thing that starts in one country, and dozing around multiple ones in different cities. Yeah. I think many people have seen that, but adapting it to their way from a fashion perspective, accessories perspective, I really don't think it's going to change. Like I say, I think they're just going to keep getting bigger and better and each year they're going to surprise us with something new. Yeah. OK, amazing. OK, one last question for the road. Can you tell us what your favourite pop-up has been that you've worked on or been to, whatever your choices? My favourite one that I worked on was definitely at Knys Studios. I've mentioned it a few times. It was my ultimate favourite. Like, their scarf has been their key piece. It was in December. It was Christmas time. Again, it wasn't a brand that we usually see in that space. I was really rooting for it to do well. It was pink walls and denim. I love pink and denim. My two favorite things. And that was for sure of the favourite one I've worked on. I'm binning. I was a customer in it, so I'm both. What's going on? Yeah, jeezy. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us today, Sean. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. Yeah, it's been great to meet you. And we look forward to hearing off my quote this pop-up in April is. Of course. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to Leap Interluxury. Don't forget to subscribe for more insights into the world of luxury and for more information about Leap Lux and the work we do, head over to Leap.Lux or find us on Instagram @LeapInterluxuryPoncast.