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Experiential Marketing

Katie Hicks

marketingbrew.com

If you thought billboards were just for looks, think again. They’re also for licks.

Carvel recently installed an ice cream-dispensing billboard in the West Village in Manhattan, serving up more than 50 gallons of soft serve, or about 1,500 servings, over the course of a seven-hour activation in mid-June. It was, according to the company, the first billboard of its kind.

“Knowing that [Carvel was] born and raised and created in New York, we wanted to find something that was uniquely [and] iconically New York, and the billboard scene definitely is that,” Marissa Sharpless, VP of marketing for Carvel at GoTo Foods, told us. “But we didn’t want to just do a billboard. We wanted to take it another step and really go big.”

And so, the decision to put a soft-serve machine inside of a billboard was born. With a full-team effort, it all came together for what Sharpless described as the “most unique way” Carvel has kicked off ice-cream season to date.

Creating the world’s first soft-serve-dispenser billboard required a “giant team effort” from Carvel’s marketing team, agency partners, operations team, and production and brand vendors, Sharpless told us. The first step, she said, was finding a street-level billboard location that had both power and water hookups. Sharpless said she had seen other brands use 137 Perry Street for indoor pop-ups, and the team determined that the space could work for an outdoor pop-up, too, both logistically and for generating foot traffic.

Then came the question of how to actually dispense the ice cream—and whether the space could hold the amount of product they thought they would need.

“Okay, now how do we make sure we can get a fridge in this space that can hold all of the soft-serve mix that we hope to be able to go through and serve everybody?” she said. “We wanted to make sure that no one would walk away disappointed.”

With the help of the brand’s production team and vendor partners, Carvel was able to retrofit a machine and get to work building the pop-up at 6am the day of the event, which kicked off at noon.

“We had our machine vendors and our executive chefs on site to ensure the product was perfect and the machines were running perfectly; we had our field team and operations team there to help dispense all of that product,” she said. “And then, of course, we had our full staff of marketing team members and agency partners out there engaging with our guests.”

Given New York’s spate of rainy weather, Sharpless said Carvel was prepared with backup ideas, but on the day of the event, the sun came through. “We were prepared with ponchos,” she said, “but ultimately, we were going to do this rain or shine.”

To generate awareness of the event and attract visitors, Sharpless said Carvel’s marketing team focused on organic social, posting teaser content and inviting creators to come to the event. Between June 17 and June 19, there were more than 160 million potential impressions from the content, in addition to the audience of about 1.3 million from the unpaid creator content that came out of the event, she said.

The main goals of the ice-cream billboard were to drive awareness of Carvel and encourage sign-ups for the brand’s rewards program, Fudgie Fanatics, Sharpless said, but the experience also provided the additional insight that billboards could work as a future marketing strategy.

“One of the surprises that we had when we were building it out was the amount of people that asked, ‘Is a Carvel actually coming to this location?’” she said. “It’s a unique way to think of potentially teasing future locations or as a way to test and see if locations are of interest to local communities.”

Image of sprinkles being poured on a cup of soft serve ice cream.

How Carvel created the first ice cream–dispensing billboard

The brand gave out more than 50 gallons of soft serve during a seven-hour pop-up.

Jennimai Nguyen

The Creels have moved from Hawkins, Indiana, to New York City.

Or rather, Creel House from the fictional 

universe has been erected in the lobby of the Marquis Theatre in Times Square. It’s an activation created by sister agencies Salt and Pinch (which are handling production and creative, respectively) that’s aimed at extending the beloved Netflix IP into a Broadway setting for theater and streaming fans alike.

The two-story house is made of wooden slats wrapped around the theater’s facade to create a Victorian-style structure recognizable to fans of the show. The structure, which leans into the red-and-black show aesthetic that fans have come to expect, features luxe and spooky details that tell the story of a Creel House in all its original splendor

like gilded picture frames, a stained-glass door, striking shadows, and lots of candlelight.

It’s not the first time Netflix has dived into experiential marketing with 

; the streaming giant, which has also hosted events tied to titles like

, has held activations for the Duffer Brothers’ series in cities around the world, and later this year, the show will come to life at 

 around the country. This time, the Creel House lobby is the first thing theatergoers see as they head into 

, a Tony Award-winning prequel play that critics have 

While the lobby is designed for fans headed to see the show, it’s not limited to ticketholders, since anyone passing by or staying in the Marriott Marquis hotel can also venture into the Upside Down. It’s an aspect that its creators, Don Strom, co-founder and managing partner at Salt and Pinch, and Michael Brown, executive creative director at Pinch, kept in mind while putting it all together.

“We’re really designing it as part of that larger piece [of theater],” Brown said. “But the great, intentional side effect of it is that we are creating great backdrops for social share, whether I’m attending or not, that aren’t just a logoed backdrop.”

When Strom and Brown signed onto the project, the first thing they had to think about was the physical space where they were installing the activation. Most New York theaters don’t have much extra room beyond the required stage and seats, but luckily at the Marquis Theatre, there is plenty of space to build out something special, Brown told us.

The Marquis Theatre is housed inside of the Marriott Marquis hotel, providing an expansive lobby area that shows like 

 have previously also used to their advantage, using it for photo ops and merch displays. For 

, the Creel House structure in the lobby serves as both marketing and storytelling space, Brown said, welcoming guests into the show experience as they go up the hotel’s escalator and providing a gateway into both the physical space and fictional world.

 universe, the house is also just this very real, imposing yet mysterious structure that sets the stage for the intriguing and thrilling spectacle audiences will experience during the play,” Greg Lombardo, VP of experiences at Netflix, told us in an email. “By having guests go through the doors of the Creel House, we created an immersive environment that begins before the show starts and extends to shareable photo moments that help draw audiences in.”

Working in a hotel lobby can have its challenges. Strom and Brown said they focused on creating a plan that allowed for regular guest traffic, and because some elements of the lobby are not changeable, they leaned into lighting, color treatments, and bold iconography to match the overall effect of the install.

“What would it look like in a theater lobby in 1959 Hawkins?” Brown said. “[We brought] in all these custom-made posters from that era of Hawkins to really take it over, making concession stands, all these smaller things that really delight people and really start to build and complete that illusion even before they’ve gone through the front door and taken their seats inside the theater itself.”

From the beginning of the process, the design duo were focused on the audience that would be walking through Creel House, which could include not just diehard stage fans, but fans of the TV series eager for a new experience from their favorite show.

“Somebody who’s made the decision [of] ‘I don’t want to just enjoy Netflix on a screen at home, I want to—and I know this word gets thrown around a lot—immerse myself in it, both in the theater and in the space,’” Brown said. “There’s a certain intentionality, excitement that we want to deliver and build a story around for them.”

There’s also a third possible audience: the casual attendee who may or may not be familiar with the 

universe. Lombardo said that because the play itself is a prequel, the story’s standalone nature is welcoming to anyone—a quality they also sought to reflect in the lobby experience.

will certainly deepen your understanding of the play, it was designed to work independently, requiring no prior knowledge of the series—allowing us to reach both new audiences and fans,” he said.

In evaluating the success of experiential marketing activations, Lombardo said revenue and engagement are both important metrics for the company. 

 has sold out its theater multiple times in previews and its official run, and most recently grossed more than $1 million in one post-Tony’s week in June. Awards also come into play; the production took home four Tony Awards and 23 total award wins this season, per Lombardo.

But there’s also a much more immediate form of feedback: guest reactions on the spot, which Strom said he sought out when he attended the lobby to show it off to his own friends.

“I wanted to just see the reaction, and they get to the top [of the escalator] and you see it,” he said. “There’s a gasp, there’s a ‘Whoa!’ It almost has the excitement of when you’re about to enter a new world at a theme park.”

Inside ‘Stranger Things’ stage experience at the Marriott Marquis lobby. 

How Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ came to life in the Marquis Theatre lobby 

Sister agencies Salt and Pinch helped create a real-life Creel House to welcome theatergoers to the prequel play “Stranger Things: The First Shadow.”

Inside the Upside Down: How Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ came to life in the Marquis Theatre lobby 

Love is in the air, and brands are trying to bottle it up and market it.

As Valentine’s Day ushers in a flurry of pink-and-red-hued campaigns, companies like coffee brand La Colombe, fitness subscription platform ClassPass, and sports club CityPickle are taking the romantic vibes a step further by hosting their own singles and dating-focused events. The events aren’t just tapping into consumer interest in experiences: Brand marketers say they view the 

 as a way to foster their own relationships with customers while putting their core values on display.

“It’s about building connection. It’s about building community,” Mary Cannon, co-CEO at CityPickle, told us. “Cupid might be in the air particularly, but it’s a priority for us at CityPickle to build and promote connectivity.”

CityPickle’s singles events are one of their most popular types of events throughout the year, Erica Desai, the other co-CEO at CityPickle, told us, and after hosting dozens of singles-focused events so far, the brand’s Valentine’s event quickly sold out—although she and Cannon clocked a slight disparity in how quickly tickets sell.

“The women’s tickets sell out instantaneously. In fact, we have a wait list that’s longer than the number of tickets that we offered,” Cannon said. “The men typically do not sell out immediately.”

That difference is key to how CityPickle designs its singles events, and Cannon said that they sell designated women’s and men’s tickets so both demographics are represented.

“It’s these little things and this extra thoughtfulness that we hope facilitates a really great time, because I think it’s the pre-planning that goes into a mixer like this that really helps contribute to the success,” Cannon said.

This year, La Colombe targeted Valentine’s Day for the first time, hosting “Love Over Lattes” singles happy hours in its cafes in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago and partnered with local influencers to host and facilitate the events. Choosing the right influencers—which included Street Hearts’ Tiff Bairas, Free Dating Advice Philly’s Kate Catinella and Sam Stanton, and Happier Hours’ Kate Lazarski—was important to serving each city’s audience, according to Kathryn O’Connor, CMO at La Colombe.

“As we wanted to create a deeper, more fun, meaningful experience in each market, we were like, ‘Who would be the right partner to tap in each market?’” O’Connor told us. “So we talked to a bunch of people and developed relationships with both the folks in Philly and the one in Chicago.”

ClassPass’s in-house team hosted an exclusive singles workout class at Barry’s for its entry into the holiday, and since the fitness platform already partners with studios, it worked closely with the Barry’s team to enhance the experience, Sam Madrid, ClassPass’s lead marketing operations manager, told Marketing Brew.

“For this, we’re looking for partner elements, or like, ’How can we get folks to engage in class?’” Madrid said. “So you really need the instructors to buy in for that, because you want them to really hype up the event, encourage folks to talk in between sets and things like that.”

Maxine Williams, the founder of We Met IRL, an event brand that focuses on speed dating and mixers, said that in the three years she’s been staging dating events, she’s learned that good relationship-building events for brands require a close understanding of what customers actually want.

“Just make it make sense,” WIlliams told us. “[For example,] maybe it’s like, ’Oh, a lot of married couples go to the YMCA,’ so they’re having a marriage[-focused] Valentine’s event. That makes sense. They know their customer base.’”

Tapping into the dating industry can produce some swoon-worthy results. La Colombe’s largest cafe space in Philadelphia netted 475 RSVPs in “a very, very short period of time,” O’Connor said, and both New York and Chicago’s 100 RSVPs quickly filled up and spilled over into waiting lists. CityPickle’s singles’ events, meanwhile, have grown so popular that it branched out this year, working with the pickleball league Queer Pickle to host a queer-focused Valentine’s event.

Even before the brand’s first singles event, La Colombe was already involved in love stories, O’Connor said, so stepping into the dating scene was a natural next step.

“It is not uncommon for people to write into us via social or email to share their couple origin story [that’s] like ’We met at La Colombe this many years ago.’” O’Connor said. “We’ve gotten sent wedding invitations. We have hosted weddings in our cafes because people have such a deep connection …. So we’re there one way or the other. In a way, it’s just a timely, relevant way to bring it to life.”

Split image of City Pickle and bingo card from ClassPass Barry's.

How brands are getting involved in dating and singles events

Companies are playing matchmaker with singles happy hours, mixers, and workout classes.

Wanna find love? The brands are here to help.

Jasmine Sheena

This fall, Warner Bros. Discovery is giving fans of the Beetlejuice franchise the chance to see what the afterlife is 

In late August, ahead of the US theatrical release of 

an “afterlife experience” opened up in Los Angeles, giving attendees the chance to immerse themselves in the world of the films. Visitors begin their journey to the afterlife in—where else—a waiting room, from which they are called to a window to consult with an afterlife caseworker and obtain an “Afterlife Passport” and a passport stamp. Once they’ve gained entry to the afterlife, they’ll be greeted by several interactive experiences, including a beauty salon called “Brush with Death” and a section for horoscope readings, according to Kathleen Wallis, VP of global themed entertainment at WBD.

The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience, which runs through mid-November, marks the first time that Wallis’s team has “worked that closely with the theatrical [marketing team] on a project like this,” she said, and while WBD declined to share attendance numbers, Wallis described it as “a big success.”

“This is now a blueprint for future collaborations,” she told Marketing Brew.

WBD is one of several entertainment companies making continued investments in experiential marketing as a way to engage with fans and hopefully incentivize them to come back to movie theaters or to their televisions by strengthening their relationships with some of their biggest titles.

“You spend so much time investing yourself into these worlds and into these characters,” said Eric Lee, partner and CTO of Stagwell’s Left Field Labs, which worked with Amazon’s Prime Video on an experiential activation 

. “When you actually get to step into that world and engage in that deeper way in person, you really do see that moment of magic that it sparks for people.”

Across the industry, experiential marketing is back in a big way. In 2024, global experiential marketing spend was expected to grow by 10.5%, the first year it’s projected to exceed prepandemic spend, according to market research firm PQ Media.

For studios and streamers, experiential marketing can help bring tried-and-true IP to life, giving fans a way to engage with a world they’re already familiar with—and, in some cases, get brands involved. To support its Beetlejuice activation, WBD inked several brand partnerships, including with hair-color brand Splat, whose products are featured in the salon; Denny’s, whose food, including “Beetlejuicy Sliders,” is featured in the “Afterlife Diner”; and Fanta, whose “Fanta Afterlife Train” includes a limited-edition Beetlejuice-themed soda called Haunted Apple available on the platform. Deodorant brand Secret is also getting in on the fun, with samples of its products available in the activation’s restrooms.

Beyond brand involvement, the activation also supported other parts of WBD’s marketing around the movie, Wallis said, including by providing a photogenic backdrop for earned media and social marketing facilitated by Warner Bros. Pictures.

“They brought influencers there,” Wallis said. “They had some press moments there as well, and they were in lockstep with us, with marketing the experience to drive awareness for the film.”

IP-based experiential activations generally serve to build consumers’ relationships with content and can help companies with beloved IP find additional ways to engage with consumers offscreen, Lee said.

“It’s just about establishing more of these different touchpoints outside of the content that you watch,” he said. “That’s how people feel more involved.”

At this year’s ComicCon in Brazil, Amazon’s Prime Video ran an experience centered on 

 featuring a “magic mirror” that superimposed suits inspired by the show onto festivalgoers who participated in the activation, Lee said.

To evaluate the success of these kinds of installations, he said, his team measures both foot traffic as well as social posts borne from the event itself.

 activation, we generated a shareable asset for [Prime Video] and looked for, using hashtags, how often that has been posted,” he said. The foot traffic and social posts results “were beyond what we had set as sort of our goals for that activation,” he said.

Hulu has also turned some of its popular IP into IRL experiences. To promote the fourth season of 

 to New York in August and to Los Angeles in September.

Some streamers are looking to make experiential marketing investments full-time installations. In June, Netflix announced 

, permanent retail locations in malls in Pennsylvania and Dallas designed to house consumer experiences. The first two locations will feature experiences tied to shows including 

Wallis, from WBD, said that certain titles, including 

tend to be better-positioned to succeed in experiential settings since there is already a deep brand awareness of the IP in question. But Lee said just about anything can be turned experiential if those involved in building it understand the core of the title itself.

“When you truly have an appreciation for what the show is, what emotions it evokes, and what it is that lets people connect to that property, you can always find something in there to build an experience around,” he said.

Mixed collage of images from the Beetlejuice Afterlife Experience

Why Warner Bros., Prime Video, and Netflix are all-in on experiential marketing

IRL experiences are about “establishing more of these different touchpoints outside of the content that you watch,” one marketer told us. 

‘Step into that world’: Why Warner Bros., Prime Video, and Netflix are all-in on experiential marketing

We’ve all heard that streaming killed the cable bundle. Could it also stand to revive a vestige of days gone by?

If Netflix has its way, it just might. The streamer’s upcoming experiential retail activations are looking to breathe life back into the mall—while getting people even more hooked on Netflix programming.

The activations, dubbed Netflix House, are due to open two initial locations next year at malls in Pennsylvania and Texas, with the goal of bringing some of its highest-performing franchises to life inside shopping centers.

“At Netflix House, you can enjoy regularly updated immersive experiences, indulge in retail therapy, and get a taste—literally—of your favorite Netflix series and films through unique food and drink offerings,” Marian Lee, Netflix’s chief marketing officer, said in a blog post about the initiative. “Netflix House represents the next generation of our distinctive offerings.”

Netflix House is coming at a time when malls have seen an overall 

 in foot traffic and as consumers increasingly look for IRL experiences, Steve Pearce, managing director at the creative and experiential agency Love, told Marketing Brew.

For streamers like Netflix that want to win customers over every month, in-person events can provide opportunities to sell consumer products and incentivize customers to build deeper connections with their favorite shows, all of which could encourage them to continue watching—and paying subscription fees.

“Experiences can be hugely powerful as ways of driving lots of softer things like loyalty and brand preference, but they could actually really drive income as well,” Pearce said.

Netflix declined to make an executive available for this story.

Consumers are increasingly interested in “competitive socializing,” Pearce said, and Netflix House could benefit from the trend. Demand for IRL social experience is growing, and as some consumers find themselves less inclined to drink alcohol, it’s changed where people want to convene, Pearce told us. That’s meant an increased interest in experiences like escape rooms, where people can compete with each other or participate in activities.

“We’re all doing different things like golf and darts and cricket and all kinds of different experiences in what used to be shopping malls,” he said.

That change in consumer preferences could be valuable for shopping malls, which have faced challenges in recent years as consumers increasingly shop online (looking at you, Amazon Prime Day) and due to pandemic-era restrictions that many brick-and-mortar locations never really recovered from. In the midst of those challenges, any potential tenant—whether that’s a streaming brand or a fast-fashion company hosting a pop-up—could be welcome.

Both malls and Netflix are eager to keep customers coming back. To that end, Netflix House, which plans to initially roll out with experiences tied to franchises like 

will regularly update locations with new experiences, the company said.

Consumers love IRL events and streaming. Enter Netflix House

The streamer is setting up shop in malls in a move that could brand-build while boosting foot traffic.

Last summer’s smash hit and Warner Bros. cash cow

 is up for eight awards at this year’s Oscars—not to mention the awards it already picked up earlier this year at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, and People’s Choice awards.

The film’s feminist commentary and photogenic cast aren’t the only things it will have going for it when the awards are doled out on Sunday. Quite a lot of advertising has gone into trying to secure those gold statuettes for 

, including special screenings in Los Angeles and New York, 

, and mailers, along with discussion panels, some featuring director Greta Gerwig and singer Dua Lipa, whose song, “Dance the Night,” was featured in the film.

 isn’t the only production using those kinds of marketing tactics in an effort to encourage awards-show wins. For Your Consideration campaigns, an advertising machine that kicks into action ahead of awards season to encourage awards voters to support certain shows and movies, are nothing new in Hollywood, where a gold trophy can bring with it positive attention, new audiences, and future opportunities. In the last few years, For Your Consideration, or FYC, campaigns have transformed considerably, as audience fragmentation, increasing pressure to win over consumers—along with voters—and the still-lingering effects of last year’s writers’ and actors’ strikes continue to transform the way FYC campaigns are executed.

There are thousands of voters for both the Oscars and Emmys located all around the world, and FYC campaigns typically involve traditional media channels to reach them, including placing ads in Hollywood trade publications like Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter, as well as utilizing billboard advertising in locations like Los Angeles where a larger concentration of voters may be likely to see them. 

But like other consumers, awards voters are becoming 

“People’s attention is very fractured right now, very fragmented,” Rick Markovitz, president of Weissman/Markovitz Communications, which has worked on Emmy campaigns for shows like 

, said. “You really need to have a 360-degree campaign.”

Those 360-degree campaigns increasingly feature pieces of custom content designed to cut through, according to Louise Brennand, EVP at HBO’s FYC AOR Think Jam. To promote the second season of HBO’s hit show 

 made up of pages containing the point of view of the actors on their favorite moments filming the show that viewers could flip through.

“You’ve got to think of different ways that aren’t just re-creating the poster to tell a story of why something’s awesome,” Brennand said. (Bonus: the digital guestbook was a relatively quick turnaround, an essential component of some FYC campaigns, she added.)

Some studios are also embracing experiential activations as part of their FYC campaigns, Brennan said. Brennand pointed to Netflix’s FYSEE event, where Netflix originals are 

 for Television Academy members through immersive experiences—and opportunities to meet talent—in a large venue.

“That’s a brilliant example of awards campaigning turned experiential...and tending to consumer marketing,” she said.

Yauny Wheaton, Max’s VP of consumer marketing, said that experiential events, which can be flashy, aren’t always the most economical move in the FYC world.

“We just always felt that our dollars were better spent trying to home in on members and make sure that we were really really targeting the members,” Wheaton said. “I think the stuff that Netflix and Amazon and Apple have been doing is amazing. It’s just, sort of, when dollars are tight, it was like, ‘let’s get to the people who are actually pushing the button and voting.’”

In some cases, the cost of FYC campaigning can be better justified if it targets both voters 

“When you drive down Sunset, it is now much more B2C and consumer-focused,” she said. “Because if you’re going to spend all this money on campaigning, it’s actually got to help the overall objective of show watchers and film watchers.”

That can be easier said than done, in part because consumers may have different programming preferences than those who wield some power over which titles win during awards season. While there has been a recent push to increase diversity among 

, “the demographics of these groups, though they’re changing, are still what they are: They’re still older, still predominantly male, still predominantly white,” Howie Kaplan, EVP of strategy at the entertainment marketing agency Legion Creative, said.

Some long-standing FYC campaign strategies faced challenges last year, when the writers’ and actors’ strikes brought many 

Screenings, which are especially crucial for having talent mingle with potential voters, were often put together last-minute, according to Markovitz, and talent were largely barred from participating in promotional activities during the strikes. (Promotions didn’t dry up entirely, though; 

 not belonging to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had permission to promote projects from SAG, after agreeing to the guild’s negotiating terms.)

This year, the FYC campaigning strategy of using wins or nominations from other awards shows, like the Writers Guild Awards, to promote titles ahead of flashier awards like the Oscars, was unreliable, he said, because those awards shows—typically held before the Oscars—were shifted back as a result of the strikes, causing FYC campaigns to promote their content without being able to lean on earlier nominations or wins.

Brennand predicted that with the sheer number of FYC events across a vast slate of content from studios big and small, there could be a move toward consolidating promotional efforts.

“During awards season, there’s so many roundtables and so many screenings and Q&As. As an Academy member, good gosh, they must probably go to like three events a night, so I think there will probably be a trend more toward grouping,” she said.

At the core, though, remains the enduring challenge of deciding which titles get the attention of FYC campaigns, and which projects don’t get as much spotlight.

“Everyone thinks that they deserve No. 1 attention, and I think that’s something that is a very fine line to walk, to balance company priorities [and] talent priorities,” Brennand said. “You want talent to come back to your network. You want talent to come back year over year. But you also have to be realistic about what’s going to win.”

an illustration of a billboard with the words FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION on it, along with a magazine and a laptop computer, indicating FYC campaigns used in Hollywood 

To win Oscars and Emmys, studios are evolving their FYC campaigns

Custom content, experiential activations, and consumer-focused marketing efforts are designed with the hope of getting through to voters. 

Supergoop wants to encourage consumers to use its sunscreen year-round—but there’s no denying that summer is a particularly good time to market sun protection.

That means that in the warmer months, the brand implements an out-of-home advertising strategy that encompasses on-the-ground activations across the country. Supergoop has increased investment in its out-of-home advertising strategy 22% year over year, CMO Britany LeBlanc said, including through pop-up “Sunshine Shacks” that appear in different cities across the US. 

The Sunshine Shack, which has been a brand fixture since 2019, gives people the chance to try out and purchase Supergoop products in person with the help of an on-site “SPF Menu” denoting different products for different needs.

“Out-of-home probably is a bigger focus of our strategy in the spring and in the summer just because people are out wanting to interact with us more,” LeBlanc said.

 has grown quite a bit since founder and former Texas elementary school teacher Holly Thaggard started the brand in 2007. It has seen 65% YoY growth, reaching more than $250 million in sales last year, and Supergoop products are sold at major retailers like Amazon, Sephora, and Ulta.

To fuel that growth, the brand has relied on a marketing strategy that emphasizes video across channels like Instagram and TikTok. Earlier this year, Supergoop partnered with Snap on a Snapchat filter that let users try out all five colors of Lipshade, its SPF lipstick.

During the months where sun protection is top of mind, Supergoop adjusts its marketing messages to emphasize sunscreen products, LeBlanc said.

We shift messaging from beauty into more…’It’s summer; what’s the best SPF for you?’” LeBlanc explained. “We sort of shift what products we’re focused on. But we take an all-year-round approach to messaging, because we believe that sunscreen is something that should be worn every single day.”

This year, Supergoop’s pop-up presence expanded in an effort to reach additional customer bases beyond New York and California, where LeBlanc said the brand “has been marketing…more heavily.” In addition to New York City, the Sunshine Shack made its way to Atlanta and Denver, with additional stops planned through July and August, LeBlanc said.

“We’re looking for places where maybe sunscreen is especially needed, where people haven’t heard of Supergoop as much,” LeBlanc said. “We’re excited by the traction we’ve seen so far in those markets.”
