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Bergmeyer was enlisted to create Wilson's first store experiences in the US. From a flagship (in Chicago) to pop-ups (New York and beyond), Bergmeyer collaborated with the Wilson team to redefine and manifest this legendary brand.
For the New York City pop-up which just opened in tandem with the 2021 US Tennis Open, the team viewed this experience as a unique and distinctive tool to experiment, promote events, and celebrate new ideas. It serves as a platform to explore these concepts that help generate more acclaim than perhaps a typical retail store launch. The timespan of retail pop-up shops can also create a sense of urgency and immediacy, driving foot traffic exponentially. Approaching the go-to-market launch disruptively further elevates the brand’s stake in the brick-and-mortar experience and allows Wilson to form those critical emotional connections that create long-lasting relationships with their consumer base. There are distinctions when it comes to solving for a pop-up versus flagship. Often pop-ups are less about driving merchandise and more about high touch experientiality. For Wilson, this eight-week pop-up focused on celebrating the history and evolution of its brand and therefore leaned heavily into storytelling as a driver for the store experience. We conceived a journey populated with immersive interaction that allows customers to engage with the brand uniquely from ways they have in the past - –and especially different from a full-line store experience. Opening concurrently with the US Open, the store will serve as a hub for partnership events with everything from an Open viewing room to amazing instagrammable moments (the “ball room” is a must see), the pop-up is designed to effectively illustrate that Wilson is tennis. All that said, designing Pop-Up retail experiences can often pose many challenges to overcome in order to successfully execute the vision. The very temporary nature of Pop-Ups forces designers to rethink much of what we’re traditionally trained to do. With Wilson’s NYC pop-up lasting just eight weeks, we worked intently to prioritize areas, moments, and stories that warrant the client’s energy and investment. In many respects, this pushes us to switch gears from a typical retail design (and operational) mindset, and requires us to ensure we assign the budget to the most engaging moments of opportunity, while always making sure we work towards the goal of ensuring the customers thoughtfully remember this dynamic experience for years to come. With the final design match in full swing, we’re eager to cheer on the Wilson team and follow along to see how the SoHo store performs over the next eight weeks. Wilson’s evolution into a full-fledged brick-and-mortar brand has just begun, and we’re confident this is just the beginning of this brand’s big moves.
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