Fig 1. “I-Pop-BE” (Immersive Pop-Up Brand Experience) Design Framework Concept. Designed by Will Hsu
The Market of Streetwear and Sneaker Culture
Streetwear culture is a style of street fashion and a lifestyle for young people. It represents youth subculture across a visible range of styles including clothing, footwear, accessories, and is also reflected through trending music, art, design, and sports.
Among streetwear culture, footwear plays a huge and important role in shaping the whole culture. It is not only about the outfit and clothing, it is about the culture and the story behind it. In the past, people have worn sneakers for playing sports, for example to play basketball, to ride a skateboard and with the growth of Hip Hop culture the influence from rappers, dancers and artists have brought sneakers out of the sports arena and into people’s lives.
As social media reshaped the way people receive information, streetwear culture no longer belongs to a subculture–- but merged into mainstream pop culture. Today, streetwear culture not only represents the lifestyle and spirit of young people but also has a close relationship with commercial business, heavily influenced by sneakers–- with sneakers driving the retail market of streetwear. The market of streetwear and sneakers is huge, and unique, even the resale industry is strong. According to the sneaker data website StockX, sneakers share a $55 billion dollar market globally and an estimated $1 billion dollar resale market. The brands of sneakers expand from sportswear brands to streetwear brands, and now high-end fashion brands such as Comme des Garçons and Alexander Wang are collaborating with streetwear brands on sneakers. With streetwear culture’s unique characteristics, the people interested in this field are more willing to accept new ideas and technology, which provide more opportunity for creativity. It is common to see a lot of new marketing campaigns and events targeted to the design for these products.
Technology Has Pushed the Boundaries of Marketing
Traditional ways of showcasing and advertising streetwear and sneaker brands include commercials, advertising campaigns, events and social media posting. The intention has been provide news, information, and establish an emotional connection with the consumers to the product and brand. Many brands use images and video clips as formats to showcase the product and the concept behind the brand, for instance: the posters in the retail store, the lookbook catalog of the new season’s collection, conceptual videos on the website, and also social media sites like Instagram will have posts and stories that provide brand news and information. Some brands create installations or decorate the environment of the store to strengthen the whole shopping experience.
Traditional format and methods for advertising and promoting sneakers have been successful, but are not that effective, especially for sneakers--which demand the sophistication and attitude of streetwear culture. In order to keep the shopping experience fresh and special, a new format of advertising needs to be created and designed. There also needs to be multimedia integrated into the overall retail strategy. It’s not only about trying to sell the products, but it is about providing the brand’s value and selling the experience. For instance, the “Pop-Up store,” is a new format of advertising, which provides a more immersive and exclusive shopping experience for consumers. The Pop-Up store can also serve as a great physical way to better understand the value of the brand and the context behind the product. The concept of a Pop-Up store is having a temporary retail store in a certain space, or area and the purpose of it is bringing some exclusive products or to test new products to obtain feedback from the market. Moreover, sometimes the purpose might not be to directly sell the product to the consumers, instead, it brings consumers an exclusive experience for bonding with the brand. Through this experience, the consumer will develop a strong emotional connection with the brand after visiting the Pop-Up store. For example, top sneaker sellers such as Nike and Adidas are really good at bringing pop-up stores to consumers and hosting special events for their new sneaker launch or anniversary celebration.
In addition to inventing the new format, retailers and marketers also try to adapt and try to use new technology for promoting and advertising their products. Often the retailer will have its own mobile app for consumers to purchase online, receive news and provide more exclusive information about the brand. For instance, sports brands like Nike have their own mobile app for sneakers “SNKRS”, Adidas Original has “Confirmed”, and streetwear retailer KITH displays and sells their collection on “KITH” app too.
Besides mobile apps, other technologies are also used for promotion. In 2016, Adidas launched a promotion campaign for marketing the release of Adidas NMD sneakers. They built a large scale interactive LED installations called Adidas NMD cubes, and placed them in nine major European cities. The four-faced LED cube not only displayed the NMD’s advertisement, but also other content like the stream of people’s submission of their photos of NMD shoes. The interactive cube also acted as a video portal, showing the views of nine European cities with street view, and people across those different cities could interact with each other in real time. The result was thousands of interactions with the NMD cubes, and more than 150,000 photos shared in social media with a reach of over 2 million. This project showed the success of the marketing campaign benefited with technology and creativity, and also made a strong connection with the consumers and fans.
A New Medium, Immersive Technology
There is a new kind of technology now that could change the way for branding streetwear culture and sneakers, and it could be more effective, bringing an emotional connection to consumers --- immersive technology.