Celebrating 40 years, WSS is known as “your neighborhood shoe store” in Los Angeles, and for its first off-site activation, the Foot Locker-owned shoe retailer went into the community to meet its customers where they are with a pop-up rooted in Latino culture and authenticity. For the relaunch of adidas’ Superstar shoe, WSS partnered with the brand and Midcity Mercado, an organization that activates monthly events to highlight local businesses in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood, to host Tienda Superstar.
The community-focused activation in March recreated the traditional Latino tienda, or shop, with details that took attendees back to the days of shopping at the neighborhood market with mom and abuela, says Anapau Larriva, senior director-brand marketing at WSS.
After attending a few Midcity Mercado events, the WSS team decided to work with co-founder Jasmine Maldonado to ensure WSS was showing up authentically and to tap into the pop-up series’ established attendee and vendor base. WSS and Midcity Mercado collaborated as sounding boards for one another to hit the right cultural elements, from the rose design of the tote bag giveaways to the look of the piñata and decor.
“We wanted the culture to really dictate the experience. Just by people watching and seeing ourselves at Midcity Mercado—from the texture, the color, the sounds—it came together as something that could feel fresh, relevant,” Larriva says. “It started by listening to our customer and understanding our community, even within our own team. Members of our marketing team grew up shopping at WSS, so it’s ingrained in who we are. At WSS, we’re rooted in Latino communities, so understanding the cultural nuances isn’t just a strategy.”
Here, with insights and learnings from Larriva, we dive into four ways WSS and its partners brought Tienda Superstar to life.
Partnering with Local Niche Businesses
The activation took over Maldonado’s Persona the Shop in L.A. Inside, WSS set up its Tienda Superstar pop-up store where the adidas Superstars were displayed on a wall for purchase, just like in a traditional shoe store, in addition to t-shirts.
WSS brought in three local women vendors: a bow crafter, a jewelry designer and an airbrush artist, who each set up stations for customizing the purchased Superstars by changing laces and adding bows, charms and art designs. Larriva says attendees were willing to wait in line for 45 minutes to work with the vendors on personalizing their sneakers.
“We heard from Gia [Gonzalez, our jewelry designer,] that she got a few orders on her website and her Instagram, just because of people who came across her work at the event, so, in a way, you’re also helping them grow and be known. It was really cool to be able to not only do something good for our community, but also give them that platform so that more people can see their work.”
The pop-up extended outside to the parking lot, where more than 20 POC-owned businesses, vendors and artisans set up booths to display their products.
Putting a Modern Spin on Nostalgic Details
The Tienda Superstar photo booth backdrop was WSS and adidas branded and made up of crates of oranges and produce that gave off that “mercado” (market) feel. WSS also brought back the iconic mercado bag with its own branded take. A Superstar shoe-shaped piñata was designed as a tribute to Mexican culture and tradition, and a dj kept up the activation’s lively vibe as attendees moved through the space.
“Let’s pay homage to our past, but then how do we give it that modern twist? It was a way of coming together to create an experience that was guided by nostalgia, by core memories,” Larriva says. “To be honest, growing up, many of us never really saw ourselves reflected in the media or any brand campaigns. So it’s not just a marketing effort or a corporate thing, it really is for us to change the narrative. We want to give our culture, our community, that opportunity to be well represented.”
Balancing Social Media with Old-school Promo
WSS partnered with 10 influencers to promote the activation and shared content on its own social channels. “Ninety percent of the effort that we did was all on social media, so it also opened us up to understand that’s where our consumer is, where we need to do a lot more to connect with them,” Larriva says.
Word of mouth, posters and flyers were also key to driving awareness for the event. In addition to posting them near Midcity Mercado, WSS, for the first time, leveraged its local distribution center in El Monte, CA. Every online order that shipped out of the facility to the L.A. area included a flyer for the event. WSS also pushed out a 20-percent discount through its SMS program that linked to the event.
“This was one of the first times that we’ve done an activation outside of a store, so it was fascinating for us to see how our customers truly recognized our brand equity, our logo, taking it out of the traditional element of our stores,” Larriva says. “We saw quite a lot of people going from Midcity Mercado to our stores to find more products. So in terms of that customer acquisition, we engaged and met our consumer where they’re at, but also, we managed to attract new people who maybe didn’t realize that we had the Superstar, and now, they’re back, engaging and shopping with us.”
Taking Guidance from the Community
Larriva says WSS is in talks to host more activations outside its stores, and for future opportunities, the retailer may pop up at a location where consumers might not expect it to. For now, the team is happy to come away with learnings for the next one, seeing attendees lined up before doors opened and selling out the adidas Superstars on offer at the activation.
“If I had a crystal ball, I would have taken more product to meet the demand, but also something that we did throughout the project was knowing our role and what we brought to the table and then letting Jasmine, her Midcity Mercado team and the community dictate and help us understand what was the right way to show up,” she says. “For me, the most important thing was to give our culture and community the respect that they deserve. When you do it with passion, with heart and with respect, amazing things like this happen and the magic just naturally comes.” Agency: Limitless Creative.
Photos: Courtesy of WSS
