Sometimes, even big companies run into a problem they’re not sure how to solve on their own.
Few brands have a name with as much star power and history as Bloomingdale’s. The famous retailer boasts an amazing legacy in New York City and abroad, and the name Bloomingdale’s has become synonymous with incredible, iconic, and head-turning fashion. It’s a name that’s recognizable just about everywhere.
But even a brand as powerful and iconic as Bloomingdale’s knows that sometimes a company needs a boost. Bloomingdale’s recognized the value of attracting fresh, new audiences to their stores, but they realized that when it came to getting millennials to walk through their doors, they were fighting an uphill battle.
At Museum Hack, we’ve spent years crafting an approach designed to attract and engage younger audiences. We love bringing skeptical new groups into museums around the country and surprising them with just how cool a museum tour can be.
Bloomingdale’s saw how we were able to change the way people experience museums and the company’s executives were intrigued enough to want to learn more about us – and to see if we could do something similar for them.
Does Your Business Have Low Engagement?
To get started, a group from Bloomingdale’s marketing team spent an afternoon on tour with us at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took them on a premium team building experience complete with our custom scavenger hunt that has groups racing against the clock – and each other – as they scour the museum’s halls for clues.
Bloomingdale’s team fell in love not only with the Met, but with the way we connected them to the museum and its collections, history, and incredible stories. They were now hooked on the idea of having us dive deep into their own legacy and design a similar experience customized entirely for them and their space.
Bloomingdale’s specifically wanted us to focus on attracting a new, younger audience to the company’s stores. They were concerned about low engagement with their target audience and believed most millennials didn’t even know about all of the cool hidden nooks and crannies in their stores. They wanted us to bring Bloomingdale’s to life for guests.
We knew what we had to do: it was time to hack Bloomingdale’s!
Designing A Custom Company Scavenger Hunt Outside The Museum
Our groups of researchers explored every inch of Bloomingdale’s historic flagship store on 59th Street in New York City. The company wanted a specific emphasis on all of the cool, lesser known stories about the brand and its flagship store, and we were happy to dig deep into their history to deliver.
Armed with incredible facts and stories, we designed a fully customized scavenger hunt that we ran in tandem with the company’s 100% Campaign, which celebrated exclusive collections for Bloomingdale’s from top designers including Alice + Olivia, Michael Kors, Burberry, and Diane von Furstenberg.
Our research focused not only on the Bloomingdale’s brand, but on the amazing history of the store itself. We wanted to bring both to life for scavenger hunt attendees and give them a new perspective on one of the city’s famous landmarks.
The end result?
A 100% customized, interactive experience that allowed visitors to see the store in a completely new way. During the hunt, attendees interacted with sales people, were challenged to create their own outfits, took tons of photos and posted them to their social media networks, and even designed their own versions of Bloomie’s iconic Little Brown Bags. We created and promoted a hashtag solely for the event to make it easier for users to share their posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Many guests walked away with awesome prizes from winning challenges.
Check out more awesome photos from the hunt:
The scavenger hunt was a huge success! It attracted guests from all walks of life who fell in love with Bloomingdale’s all over again – or for the first time.
Do you have a space that’s begging to be hacked? We’d love to help! Give us a call at 1-800-210-9676 or send us an email at info@museumhack.com.
