How testing pure pop-up promotion delivered 16.8% conversion rate for Chilly’s
Chilly’s iconic reusable water bottles began as a D2C business in 2010, quickly becoming known as the bottle that keeps chilled drinks chilled and hot drinks hot, whilst being sustainable and reducing plastic pollution. Fast-forward to present day, and their vibrant designs are now stocked in large retailers including John Lewis and Marks & Spencer, in addition to their ecommerce business.
Chilly’s wanted to test if a standalone, destination unit outside of a multi-brand environment was viable for them, to see if they could capture passer-by attention enough to tempt people inside, and to hear feedback from customers directly about what they loved and didn’t love about the brand and its products.
A traditional retail lease with long-term commitment and no way of knowing if it would pay off was not an option for Chilly’s, who were looking for a way to quickly and easily test if exploring a longer-term lease or a pop-up schedule aligning with their trading calendar was something that should be considered.
The metric that mattered for Chilly’s was sales – if they made sales during their pop-up from passer-by footfall, they’d know there was potential to explore further activations and potentially expand the scope of the project to include product launches for their limited-edition artist-designed bottles, influencer events, and more.
Chilly’s undertook very limited promotion in the run up to their pop-up, with only a couple of social media posts shared on their brand accounts during the time that they occupied, for a true experience of pop-up without promotion, relying on the digital displays showcasing their eye-catching ad creative on the in-store and street-facing screens to catch people’s attention and bring them into the space.
Sook’s modular fit out was customised to maximise the visual merchandising of the products, a Sook-provided team of specialist customer service advisors, trained to provide the best in-store experience staffed the pop-up for the duration, and the digital displays shared Chilly’s existing ad creative on the in-store and street-facing screens.
“Our time at Sook Oxford Street was fantastic. The space is well sized, the digital screens an amazing asset, and the fixtures very flexible. The entire team were a pleasure to work with and took on many bespoke requests to ensure our time there was the best it could possibly be, and we left with many learnings for our next pop-up.”
Pavel Davison, Senior Brand Executive, Chilly’s
