Choose Your Own (NYC) Adventure

This past summer, New York was host to three pop-up shops from London-based consumer packaged goods company Unilever’s brands, St. Ives, Magnum Ice Cream and Pure Leaf (jointly owned with PepsiCo), each designed by Ganter Interior Inc. (New York). Each of the activations drove experiential brand moments through social media engagement and hands-on product customization.

The Magnum Ice Cream Bar in Chelsea, themed “The Art of Magnum,” in partnership with offbeat fashion house Moschino (Milan), offered countless who’d-have-thunk-it add-ons – rose petals, Himalayan sea salt, and more, totaling 200,000 unique combinations – and encouraged visitors to snap enviable Instagram shots of their custom creations using miniature, decked-out photo booths.

At the St. Ives Mixing Bar in SoHo, shoppers received the red-carpet treatment (sans “guest list”) with specially concocted skincare formulas. Based on their needs, guests could devise more than 50 treatment combos, with the option of 20 new, trendy skincare ingredients, such as pink lychee, ginger and volcanic sand, with creations selling for a budget-friendly $12 each.

Just a couple of blocks away, the Pure Leaf Tea House offered a variety of exclusive brewed artisanal and exotic tea creations, made twice as nice with complimentary mixology and food pairings. Visitors could sample such culinary wonders as its matcha-sprinkled popcorn – a tea-centric twist on the ever-popular union of sweet and savory.

All three pop-ups married events-style marketing and experiential store design, treating guests to VIP services that begged for some humble social media bragging.

After all, if you didn’t ’gram it, did it really even happen?