OVERVIEW
Type: Experiential Activation
Brand: Men’s Wearhouse
In-Market Dates: August – October 2018 (Pre-COVID-19)
Target Audience: Brides and Grooms
BUSINESS PROBLEM
While there were many wedding resources available to brides and grooms in 2018 (websites, magazines, blogs, social media, etc.), bridal expos were still popular because couples could collect information, special offers, and freebies. This could all be done in person, from multiple vendors, and in one location. However, with hundreds of vendors clamoring for attention, bridal expos were also noisy and cluttered environments that made it challenging for Men’s Wearhouse to stand out and differentiate itself.
INSIGHT
The majority of bridal expo attendees were newly engaged brides who were starting their wedding planning. While a bride looked forward to attending an expo for ideas and inspiration, her groom’s and groomsmen’s attire was not high on her priority list compared to the venue, flowers, food, and, of course, her dress.
SOLUTION
Since the bride was typically the driver of the wedding planning process, Men’s Wearhouse needed to capture her attention, invite her to get to know us, and address her latent concern that her groom would look great on the big day. Thus, a bride that visited the Men’s Wearhouse booth at a bridal expo should feel like she had one less thing to worry about.
In early 2018, I commissioned our creative agency, EP+Co, to help me revamp Men’s Wearhouse’s look. For many years, Men’s Wearhouse utilized the same standard toolkit as other vendors: a folding table and chairs, some signage, a cluttered stack of printed handouts, a mannequin or two on display, and a very time-consuming registration process that required collecting customer information by hand. This was not the experience Men’s Wearhouse wanted to project as the menswear category leader.
To stand out in this sea of dated sameness, my team and I completely redesigned Men’s Wearhouse’s bridal expo presence, turning it into an immersive, innovative, and interactive experience that featured:
1) An eye-catching, minimalist pop-up booth with a striking backdrop and portable “wood” flooring
2) A single editorialized printed "look book" brochure that offered helpful and entertaining content a bride could pass on to her groom — alongside coupons for the exclusive promotions and discounts she was expecting
3) A streamlined digital registration process that could be quickly and easily done on attendees’ mobile devices, thus eliminating the need for Men’s Wearhouse’s brand ambassadors to collect customer information on paper forms
4) And finally, an innovative ”custo-mannequin” experience that proved to be a game-changer for us: using proprietary technology we developed, a bride visiting our expo booth could upload a photo of her groom’s face directly from her phone onto iPad-mounted mannequins that we built specifically for this experience
RESULT
In an environment wrought with sensory-overload, Men’s Wearhouse’s new look and experience were very effective in catching a distracted bride’s eye and encouraging her to interact with the brand for much longer than she typically would have (on average, a bride spent less than three minutes in any given vendor’s booth). Specifically, her willingness to wait for her turn to engage with the custo-mannequins so that she could capture sweet, picture-perfect moments with her “groom” gave our brand ambassadors and stylists more time to promote Men’s Wearhouse’s products and offerings to her.
Men’s Wearhouse’s new bridal expo experience was the clear standout at each location we tested. The brand’s makeover attracted positive attention and rave reviews from attendees and expo producers, resulting in increased foot traffic, time spent, and quality leads. As a result of this successful test run, I secured support from Men’s Wearhouse’s executive leadership team to scale this innovative and interactive experiential activation across more markets in the following year.