How Apartment Therapy is using commerce to link the virtual and in-person elements of its hybrid Small/Cool event
This past weekend, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the SoHo neighborhood of lower Manhattan, I saw what I expect was the most photographed couch in America that weekend.
The $7,000, 1970’s-inspired couch — called the Terrazza Modular Fabric Sofa from furniture company Kardiel, for those curious — was featured in one of 12 trendy furniture and decor display rooms at Apartment Therapy’s Small/Cool NYC event that kicked off this past weekend and will run for four weekends through May 15.
The largest iteration of this event franchise, AT’s Small/Cool welcomed both fans of the brand and passers-by into the curated and shoppable interior design showroom this year, instead of limiting general access to the virtual 3D rendering of the spaces.
In its first weekend, the event saw 3,000 people come through, according to Lauren Murphy, the company’s svp of marketing, and overall 15,000 people are expected at the experience. Masks were not required at the indoor event, as NYC recently rolled back vaccination and mask mandates at many indoor institutions, though approximately one-third of the people I saw were wearing masks.
Like other publishers, AT had to figure out the best hybrid approach to the return of in-person experiences that includes the virtual components audiences and sponsors have become accustomed to. For this event, the solution was connecting both executions using commerce, giving attendees of either side the ability to buy the products featured both in the physical NYC-based showroom, as well as the online spaces.
AT makes money from The Small/Cool event both from sponsorships — which brought in seven-figures of revenue prior to the kickoff, though CRO Riva Syrop declined to share exact dollar amounts — and commissions from sales made through affiliate links, earning the company between 10-20% on all purchases, on par with its standard commission rates. All of the items were selected by the designers brought on board by the editorial team and were not branded placements, aside from sponsor Ashley HomeStore’s branded room, in which a designer selected items from the retailer’s collection to display in the space.
Last year — which was the first iteration of the event after the original launch date of April 2020 was postponed at the start of the pandemic — the event featured 10 rooms that were accessible in-person to 170 influencers and journalists over the course of a weekend in June. The online renderings of the rooms and shopping experience drove 1 million people to the website, according to the company.
This year, the event space has 12 120-square-foot spaces that each represent a different design trend — like “Wanderlust Fulfilled,” “Bespoke Style” and “Memphis-Deco” — picked by the editors and executed by designers that were hired by AT. Within each space, there are 20 to 30 items that visitors can purchase through a QR code …read more
Source:: Digiday
