Market Sector: Experiential Retail

Madison Reed

To help the brand build a solid, successful foundation for its long-term brick-and-mortar strategy, Madison Reed partnered with MG2 / The Lionesque Group to launch its first pop-up store in New York City.

With a six-month lease, the goals of the project were multi-faceted and included everything from introducing the Madison Reed brand to NYC and building awareness, to testing the viability of brick-and-mortar in order to acquire new customers and increase revenues of both one-time purchases and subscriptions. 

As a full-service partner, The Lionesque Group team provided a complete turn-key experience. Beginning by securing a retail space in Flatiron—a neighborhood with a high density of the brand’s target demographic—the team worked together with Madison Reed to conceptualize, design, source, budget, and bring to life the aesthetic and store flow for the first-ever Color Bar in just five weeks time.

Following a wildly successful launch—during which bookings increased daily—Madison Reed went on to open up a permanent location in Flatiron, with the design/build assistance of MG2 / The Lionesque Group, just a few months later, in addition to being named “Best in Beauty 2017” by NY Magazine.

Purple

With the objective of growing brand awareness and driving sales, Purple sought to tell an authentic, immersive direct-to-consumer story through a showroom and a series of pop-up experiences across the United States. Engaging MG2 / The Lionesque Group as their full-service partner, the D2C brand took a turn-key approach toward driving sales and educating potential customers. 

The design team visualized, crafted, ideated, and executed an innovative physical retail strategy, as well as sourced and managed the production of popup spaces across multiple cities. This multi-faceted program has empowered the brand to evolve and expand the program in the future, broadening its reach and allowing more customers to experience their Purple Grid technology first-hand.

Periodic: A Popup Shop

A turnkey pop-up solution for innovative brands.

In today’s retail landscape, many companies find themselves hoping to test the waters of a brick-and-mortar investment before committing to a longer lease. Periodic—designed and implemented by MG2 / The Lionesque Group—is an award-winning, turn-key space located in the South Lake Union district of Seattle created for brands to activate pop-up experiences in a seamless way.

With the unique challenge of creating a full-service platform that offered both a B2B and B2C presence, the team worked with close attention to detail on everything from the Periodic name, font, and logo, to the modularity and functionality of design fixtures, to curating onboarding and offboarding programming offered to each business that inhabits their space.

From two weeks to two months at a time, Periodic gives brands an opportunity to have a presence in a fast-growing, highly trafficked neighborhood. The platform is designed to set them up for success, taking the jurisdictional weight off their shoulders and allowing them to test for viability, grow brand awareness, or trial a target demographic in a short amount of time with an efficient investment approach.

Along with a fixturing package designed to flex and modulate to accommodate individual merchandising and storytelling needs, each curated brand has access to a local marketing company and a best practices playbook. The space itself—a glass building on a corner lot—acts as a billboard, creating a truly unique, hyper-accessible, out-of-the-box pop-up solution that both brands and the community are already benefitting from.

For its unique consumer experiences and experimental turnkey platform that allows for brands of all sizes to test the brick-and-mortar waters in downtown Seattle, Periodic: A Popup Shop was honored as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Retail Designs of 2021.

Press Coverage

jcoco

A tastefully designed shop for all seasons

Seattle Chocolate’s jcoco line brings together high-quality chocolate infused with global flavors with a high-fashion image and a strong commitment to community. MG2’s Peter Stocker worked closely with jcoco in the line’s early stages to develop its unique brand concept and packaging. Informed by this insight, Stocker and the MG2 team successfully brought the jcoco brand to life in their first standalone location.

MG2 designed the location to reflect the flexibility and interactivity of a pop-up shop, but with the high-end details of a permanent brick-and-mortar that is befitting of the stylish jcoco brand. MG2 designed the shop to undergo a series of three complete transformations during its seven-month run, with each design concept, in-store events, and merchandising drawing inspiration from a seasonally featured chocolate.

The jcoco pop-up is a clear representation of the impact of end-to-end brand storytelling and the type of immersive, interactive experience that can only happen in a brick-and-mortar store.