High-end Canadian-based clothing retailer Kit and Ace is looking to build its brand among global jetsetters by hosting a series of pop-up shops in luxury hotels in major cities around the world.
The pop-up series, known as “The Carry-on,” is taking place in April in places such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York as well as London in the United Kingdom and Sydney and Melbourne in Australia.
The campaign will also take place online through social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, where brand followers can see what’s happening at each pop-up event and also get some tips on the best places to eat, shop and visit in each city, based on input from local influencers.
Vancouver-based Kit and Ace uses pop-up stores as a way to establish a presence in neighbourhoods where it plans to open new permanent locations, but this is the first time the company has tried a travelling pop-up campaign. The goal with its hotel campaign is to promote its clothing as being ideal for travellers.
“We wanted to play on travel and partner with really cool hotels and do a pop-up to tell our brand product story in a way that we haven’t done before,” Kit and Ace co-founder and head of brand, John James Wilson, told Marketing.
“We are definitely looking at it as a bit of a test … I’m really looking forward to seeing what the results will be,” who earned a spot on Marketing‘s 30 Under 30 list last year.
Kit and Ace sells shirts, pants and jackets that it said were “perfect for long flights” with technical features that mean the material doesn’t wrinkle and holds its shape “even when held in one position for a while,” the company said in a release promoting the pop-up events.
Wilson said Canadian hotels aren’t on the list because the company has several stores in Canada.
“For us it was about creating destinations beyond our home country,” said Wilson.
That said, the company is considering doing similar hotel pop-ups in Canada in future.
Wilson, the son of Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, founded the company in 2014 with his stepmother Shannon Wilson, the former head of design at Lululemon.
Kit and Ace began with one shop in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood and today the company has 52 stores and four pop-up retail locations across North America, Australia, the United Kingdom and Japan, as well as an ecommerce site.
