We have heard of a Dairy Milk Pebbles castle. We have also heard of an upcoming 'Photo frame shaped' hotel and an underwater room, but a 'shoe box' shaped pop-up store? That is something new.
Celebrating 50 years of the legendary Stan Smith shoes, the trainers named after iconic American tennis player 'Stan Smith', Adidas opened a 'shoe box shaped' pop up store in London, where customers could not only buy limited edition Stan Smith sneakers but also took part in several interactive activities.
The shoe box structure looked exactly like a 'Stan Smith' sneakers package with white exteriors and 'Stan Smith' printed in green on the exteriors. There was a barcode right adjacent to the entrance on the side of the box-shaped store as well.
The little door opened into white interiors where 3D Systems Cube printers lined all the walls. The printers operated live in the store where one could personalize their Stan Smith shoe lace locks, replacing the classic picture of the tennis icon with their own photo, reports Cubify.
See how the sneakers looked:
The 2nd winner of personalized #StanSmith's – @tomi4yui!! 3 more winners to come, you have until tomorrow to enter pic.twitter.com/4pHWKC8zvL
— adidas Originals (@adidasoriginals) January 16, 2014
Customers also participated in other activities like using the 'Stan Yourself' app to replace Stan Smith's face and his signature with their own in the classic endorsing portrait, which looked something like this (below):
WHO NOW? You now. @punipuniobscura with that #StanSmith tint pic.twitter.com/4M74jUDdHg — adidas Originals (@adidasoriginals) January 17, 2014
Check out the photos of the store, here.
PSFK.com wrote about the event:
"Unlike the usual experience of going to buy a pair of shoes however, the sports brand made sure to give their customers an experience they are unlikely to ever forget."
However, business experts are calling this attempt a "Pseudo-Scarcity Trick". According to Businessweek, relying on an old shoe to notch up competition is a 'no-brainer'. Apparently, Nike has increased its sales by 16 percent with its Converse and Chuck Taylor Line, which is about double the figures of Adidas.
But Adidas seems to hold its own. Not only did it find a unique way of marketing its classic sneakers, but also opened its first Stella McCartney store in Miami Beach at 1111 Lincoln Rd. The 1000 square feet, custom built store will offer a selection of pieces from the Stella McCartney Spring/Summer 2014 collection, reports Miami Herald.
