Beauty and lifestyle dark-horse brand Brandless only sells its products online, for $3 apiece. But, between May 1 and May 13, the company has a single physical location, a small pop-up storefront in Los Angeles, with one catch: none of the products on display are for sale.
For a brand that (until now) exists exclusively online, overcoming consumer incredulity over their products is a major hurdle, Lee Anne Grant, head of business development & partnerships at Brandless, told AListDaily on a tour of the shop. Especially since Brandless’ brand focuses on unobtrusive labeling and unflashy packaging, the company has taken a handicap on selling its own products as part of its brand mission.
“We have over 300 products: [our community] want to understand what they taste like, how big they are, touch, try it, et cetera,” Grant said. “[Opening the pop-up] was to help them experience the actual products.”
Called a “Pop-up With Purpose,” the physical location aims to address these issues: visitors may not be able to take the boxes of products home with them but there are a number of sampling stations, letting potential customers try out the products firsthand, and order them later, if they choose.
“We’re not doing a pop-up to drive revenue or be in retail,” Grant said. “We’re doing a pop-up to give our community an experience. We wanted to focus more on creating social moments for them.“
And indeed, the other activities hosted at the pop-up were consistent with Grant’s stated goal. Over the two weeks the pop-up is running, Brandless is hosting a number of events at the location, ranging in subject from gluten-free cooking tutorials to kid-friendly activities to meditation seminars—customers can shell out $9 for a ticket for the events and in addition 10 meals donated to the company’s charity partner, Feeding America, in their name.
Grant identified Brandless’ target audience as two separate groups: anti-establishment millennials seeking out non-GMO, vegan and gluten-free home and beauty products (a group Grant identified as “belief buyers”), and “heads of household” buying for larger families, looking for convenience and to avoid the higher cost of brand names, something Brandless calls a “BrandTax.” The e-commerce startup’s social media presence around the pop-up is designed to reach both groups in their own ways.
“We wanted to try an event space where we could bring thought leaders and community members to interact and talk about everything from living celiac disease and being gluten free to how to give more back to nonprofits,” Grant stated.
The store features a number of branded Instagrammable items, such as a floating box exploding out Brandless products, a wall of do-it-yourself empowerment phrases (contributed to by Beyoncé) and a huge bottle of maple syrup.
For the older and out-of-town, Brandless has been live-streaming many of its live events on Facebook for free, reaching the former group on their preferred platform. Additionally, the company will soon debut a pair of national television ad campaigns, focusing on the brand’s consistent pricing through the lens of both an overworked mother and younger consumer testimonials.
The pop-up focuses much more on exposing the still-new Brandless brand to the largely ignorant public—for as much the company appears both in print and social media, it is only 9 months old. “We’re barely a toddler,” Grant was quick to remind. The intent behind the pop-up’s strategy comes from Brandless’ belief that for consumers to be convinced to buy in, they need only see the products in action.
