Territorialising brand experience and consumption: Negotiating a role for pop-up retailing

Abstract

The evolving consumption landscape creates challenges for retailers in accommodating their modus operandi to negotiate changing consumer needs, arguably requiring a ‘new’ type of retailing to hopefully facilitate future success. We suggest that an important aspect of such negotiation will be the use of ‘pop-up’ activity, and we critically evaluate the potential of these ephemeral consumption spaces to constitute and shape consumers’ brand-oriented relations and experiences into the future. Informed by the work of Deleuze and Guattari, we take a territorological perspective. Drawing on data from eight UK-based pop-up cases, we (1) analyse how these temporary ‘territories’ of brand experience are developed and implemented; (2) analyse what differentiates them from other, traditionally conceived, territories of brand experience; and (3) critically evaluate pop-up’s neglected characterisation in terms of a more ‘fluid’ spatial-temporal retail territory, to better understand its role in contemporary consumer culture. We posit that the development of pop-up activities occurs through the coordination of actions of a variety of stakeholders, constituting a spatial-temporal confluence of both material and processual elements to create a ‘ refrain’, through the compression and compaction of interior, intermediary, exterior and annexed milieus. In doing so, we offer a new lens through which to view the creation of retail consumption spaces.

(Re)crafting belonging: cultural-led regeneration, territorialization and craft beer events

“…Inspired by Deleuze and Guattari (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980), such an approach seeks to understand the boundaries created within and around spaces and places, which result in belonging for some, while potentially leading to others feeling out of place. Others have adopted a territorological lens to study a range of urban environments such as public squares and precincts (Kärrholm, 2017); urban parks (Cheetham et al, 2018); (pop-up) retail (Kärrholm, 2009(Kärrholm, , 2013Shi et al, 2019); urban mega-events (Duignan & Pappalepore, 2019;McGillivray & Frew, 2014); and urban processions (Platt & Medway, 2020). This paper builds on this work, whilst also being novel in utilising a territorological lens to explore craft beer events, and the territorialization processes that shift across online and offline spaces.…”

“…Vacant infrastructure within post-industrial cities (e.g., industrial estates, railway arches, decaying buildings) is often utilized, appealing to connections between craft beer and industrial working-class heritage (Wallace, 2019). These are established forms of 'temporary urbanism' (Shi et al, 2019) offering opportunities to experiment and attract significant numbers of consumers without the risks associated with more permanent establishments.…”

“…The topographies of Manchester's alcohol consumption have been reconfigured through these shifts, aligning with broader trends around the use of temporary spaces to counter uncertainties of British austerity (Hubbard, 2019;Shi et al, 2019). New drinking spaces are, thus, being established, co-constructed through place managed gentrification and progressive forms of craft and creativity enacted by craft beer producers and consumers.…”

“…'Territory' and 'territoriality' have long been studied in geographical discussions of space and power (Raffestin, 2012); but early conceptualization typically considered a 'territory' to be static, fixed, and enclosed (Kärrholm, 2017;Shi et al, 2019). We engage with Brighenti's (2010) territorological approach, which instead considers the fluidity, processual and 'eventful' dimensions of territorialization; to examine how things temporally and spatially assemble in ways that produce inclusions and exclusions.…”

“…The meet-up, discussed above, interfered with any preconfigured perceptions, shifting the territorialization of the scene by challenging the hierarchy of existing territorial productions. In considering events as processual there is potential to recognise future territorial 'unclaspings' (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980;Shi et al, 2019), whereby such new ways of women -and other non-dominant subjectivities -to utilise the affordances of craft beer events and online spaces, to lead to alternative, or multiple, territorial formations.…”