Grand-Scale Events Inspire Grand Retail Experiences

Just over a week ago, I had the good fortune of attending a series of events that led up to, and included, the NBA All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden (New York). Heretofore, I had always presumed that the All-Star Game was simply that – just one game. Maybe it started that way, but it is so not that now.

The three-day extravaganza is a marathon celebrating the best the game has to offer and the super-humans who excel at it. Now you may be asking what the NBA All-Star events have to do with retail. Well, I’m here to tell you it that they have everything to do with retail.

To prepare, I made a trip to the Garden to check out the Nike House of Hoops, by Foot Locker (New York), pop-up store Thursday before the game. For something that’s supposed to be temporary, it offered an amazing experience. Part museum, part store, this pop-up excelled at successfully providing three things: a celebration of the brand, a celebration of the players and a celebration of the products – in that order.

The exhibit conveys the education of the brand, what it stands for, and the living proof of its power through the manifestation of the athletic icons who sport the iconic Swoop. It’s pretty powerful stuff.

The journey culminates in the vast array of the latest and most creative sneakers Nike has to offer. If this isn’t enough for your particular tastes, the store also offers a super-sized customization zone where you can tailor the product to be uniquely your own.

Upon entering the Barclays Center (Brooklyn, New York), for the second of the three-night events, I was pleased to see the All-Star regalia front-and-center in the main entry area. This small retail zone exuded “temporary,” and made me recall (by way of contrast) the quality of the Nike pop-up.

In comparison, the bar had been forever raised by Nike, proving that temporary does not have to mean makeshift. It’s about intention – the Nike House of Hoops store felt permanent, despite the fact the exhibition nature of the experience hinted at the expiration date.

This retail zone at Barclays gave the impression it would be knocked down easily within an hour of the event’s completion. I really found no good excuse for this ad-hoc approach, except that the arena’s designers knew more about sports than they did about the retail that feeds off it.

As I wandered around the common areas, and availed myself of some edibles from the concessions fueled by local Brooklyn eateries, I happened upon the permanent retail shops. Again, disappointed at the missed opportunity.

Visitors to this arena are there for a strong, emotionally driven reason: they are fans. They want to be these players, or be affiliated with the assemblage that is this particular team or locality. As such, these customers are looking for, and frankly, deserve more for the experience. They deserve to be invited into the club, feel welcomed, peek behind the curtain and be a part of something greater. Perhaps most importantly, they deserve to feel that the purchases made, plus the price of an admission ticket, were well-spent.

The Nike House of Hoops pop-up accomplished that. The retail experience itself was a celebration, just as the events at these arenas are. So why wouldn’t the arena’s retail environment align with the natural vibrant energy that inherently resides there? It’s obvious – lack of intention.

Read more about Kathleen’s 2015 NBA All-Star Game retail experiences.

Kathleen Jordan, AIA, CID, LEED AP, is a principal in Gensler’s New York office, and a leader of its retail practice with over 24 years of experience across the United States and internationally. Jordan has led a broad range of retail design projects as both an outside consultant and as an in-house designer. She has led projects from merchandising and design development all the way through construction documentation and administration, and many of her projects have earned national and international design awards. Contact her at kathleen_jordan@gensler.com.