MCM WeChat Campaign: How To Create a Pop-Up Shop That Works

Pop-up stores are becoming popular with luxury brands as a cost-effective way to create a social media buzz. These one-time events expand offerings for the modern Chinese consumer, with Chanel's Café, Coco's Game Center and YSL's Beauty Yacht Party as examples of early adopters. However, as pop-up shops become more common, the cost of generating engagement has started to rise. Marketers are left with the question: can a one-time pop-up event ever leave a sustainable impact? With the help of WeChat, perhaps it can - as German fashion brand MCM demonstrates. MCM hosted a three-month-long series of pop-up events across China this year, running through July 15. The brand's pop-up cafe provided MCM with a wealth of information on how to capitalize on temporary footfall. “The goal of the China marketing team was to enhance customer experience both physically, with our MCM Café, and on WeChat - to drive them to the pop-up location,” explained Maggie Luo, global digital director for MCM Worldwide. After the event, MCM targeted its VIP customers who had visited the cafe. These visitors were invited to a "VVIP" event, where they could enjoy an enhanced coffee-making experience. How it worked: MCM chose to design and create a one of a kind “MCM Bus” that doubled as a coffee shop. In contrast to brand pop-ups that intend to highlight sales of specific products, MCM Café allowed guests to enjoy artisan coffee for free. MCM used WeChat to attract and engage followers to join the offline pop-up event. Through WeChat, the brand's team first identified specific followers who would be likely to partake in the event. MCM then targeted these followers by sending event invitations and reminders. To acquire new WeChat customers, there was a QR code at the event for attendees to scan. In the past, such a comprehensive event strategy could take months for a brand to execute. However through the use of a social CRM system, WeChatify, MCM was able to launch an event registration system, send out customer invitations, and schedule event reminders in a matter of hours. WeChatify enables a brand to track any of their subscribers' WeChat interactions – from transactions on WeChat e-commerce and activity on WeChat's mini-programs (mini-apps inside of the WeChat ecosystem), to clicks on articles from official WeChat accounts. This information can then enable brands to deliver followers a personalized, omnichannel experience. “Driving engaged potential customers into the store in a way that was both trackable and could be rapidly deployed helped guide our WeChat CRM strategy for MCM”, says Tom Kruger, managing director of TMG Worldwide, the agency who help to execute MCM’s WeChat campaign. The takeaways: Select VIPs: filter your subscribers and invite the valuable ones to the event in order to achieve meaningful engagement. Reward loyalty: offer giveaways at themed pop-up to give back to your VIP customers. Promote future engagement: invite customers back for future visits, and to personal in-store appointments.

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MCM WeChat Campaign: How To Create a Pop-Up Shop That Works