Mediaboss Marketing

Andrew Yang and his campaign manager plopped themselves down before microphones at campaign headquarters late last month for a 10-hour online chat with the "Yang Gang" and those that the upstart presidential candidate calls "the Yang curious."

About 90 minutes in, Yang's campaign manager turned the topic to, of all things, pro football and his beloved Buffalo Bills.

"Now, I have hatred for Patriots," Zach Graumann said. "No offense to New England, New Hampshire we love you guys. I'm a Buffalo Bills fan. I just can't do it."

Yang a New York tech entrepreneur who's campaigning hard in New Hampshire, the first primary state quickly piled on. Yang pummeled Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for his laissez-faire attitude toward the accusation that his team deflated footballs used during a 2015 playoff game.

Welcome to this year's most idiosyncratic and surprisingly successful Democratic presidential campaign led by a die-hard Bills fan who counts Williamsville's Maple West Elementary School among his alma maters.

Virtually unknown a year ago, Yang a Schenectady native has done something that neither New York Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand nor New York Mayor Bill de Blasio could do. With Graumann leading the way, Yang has turned a long shot campaign into one that's flush with funds and steady in the polls.

Yang's success seems tied to his dire message. He says artificial intelligence will soon leave millions unemployed and that the government ought to tax big tech enough to pay every American a $1,000-a-month "Freedom Dividend" to help them reboot in the coming technological revolution.

But Yang's campaign is anything but dire. On the trail, Yang exudes joy and good humor and hope. And with Graumann at his side at most times, Yang's effort feels not just like a freewheeling, fun-loving campaign, but also like a buddy movie.

We sift through all the news to give you a concise, informative look at the top headlines and must-read stories every weekday.

Several hundred people crowded the stage at the end of a recent Yang rally in Northern Virginia. The candidate shook hands and laughed and posed for photos. At his side, snapping pictures, stood a tall, athletic redhead who, at age 31, had already come a long way in life, including a stop at Maple West Elementary School in Williamsville.

It was there, at age 6, that Graumann fell in love with the Bills.

"When I lived there," Graumann said, "the Bills were in their heyday" and he got hooked.

His family moved to the Buffalo area when his father's employer was stationed there, and the family moved to Connecticut only two years later when the company moved.

But in some ways, Graumann's heart never left Buffalo. He recalled difficult days in school in Connecticut, surrounded by Giants, Jets and Patriots fans, and difficult Sundays when the Bills were anything but in their glory years.

Graumann stuck by them the whole way, through his days at Duke University and on into his career on Wall Street and as the founder of an educational nonprofit. Seeing a team on the rise, he became a season ticket holder last year.

"I really think Terry Pegula and Kim Pegula are godsends for the city," Gaumann said. "I'm a big believer in building culture and building organizations and, you know, creating viable long-term success. And I believe they're doing that, so it's exciting."

Graumann is having a hard time fitting Bills games into his busy schedule this year, though. And it's all because he attended a dinner party with Yang in New York in summer 2017.

He had known Yang professionally for years, but never before had he heard Yang talk like this. Yang laid out how many jobs had been lost to automation and how many more would be. Yang said that he was going to run for president to spread that message and offer a solution.

Graumann's response?

"I'm in, man, let's do this thing!"

Graumann had no political experience, but Yang named him campaign manager the next spring. Together they took to barnstorming the small towns of Iowa and New Hampshire, bonding all the way.

Former tech executive Andrew Yang enters the Spin Room after the Democratic Presidential Debate at Otterbein University in October in Westerville, Ohio. (Getty Images)

Selling the Freedom Dividend

Only a few people turned out to see Yang at first, but on Nov. 4, 2,000, people showed up to hear him at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

After the introductory speeches, Yang duckwalked across the stage wearing a blue blazer, a star-spangled scarf and a blue baseball cap that said MATH. It stands for Make America Think Harder," and, between one-liners, that's just what Yang asked the crowd to do.

"The Democrats are acting like Donald Trump is the source of all of our problems," Yang said. "He is not. He is a symptom. He's a manifestation of the fact that we're going through the greatest economic transformation in our country's history."

Yang then painted a haunting picture of an evolving America where tens of millions of jobs will be automated away.

The crowd listened. And then when Yang laid out his proposed solution a $1,000 a month check from the government, paid every month the place erupted.

It's not the only eruption the Yang campaign has experienced recently. His fundraising exploded in the third quarter, when he raised $10 million three times what he raised in the previous three months. Meanwhile, he's up to 2.8% in the latest national polling average, far below the front-runners but more than 2.5 percentage points ahead of where Gillibrand and de Blasio stood when they left the race.

To hear Graumann tell it, Yang's stark warning about automation and his proposed solution explain that surprising success.

"There are a million reasons to love our guy but the biggest reason we are sticking around is because we're talking about the real problems in America and providing a new way forward," Graumann said.

Members of the Buffalo Yang Gang 1,858 people strong on Twitter agree.

Charles Sciascia, 32, of Amherst works in web design and internet marketing. He's already seeing jobs in those fields being automated away. And he thinks Yang's Freedom Dividend would help ease the economic anxiety that Trump exploited in his 2016 bid for the White House.

"Andrew Yang is the only one Trump might face who is finding solutions to solve the problems that got Trump elected in the first place," Sciascia said.

Presidential campaign managers rarely travel with candidates, but Graumann nearly always accompanies Yang on the road, managing communications and talking strategy. Graumann trails Yang at campaign events, laughing at jokes he's heard dozens of times before and taking pictures along the way.

"We find it a different but effective way to run this campaign," Graumann said.

Both Yang and Graumann talk more like startup entrepreneurs than politicos, and they have run the campaign as such, building a big base of donors online and promoting Yang's signature proposal the Freedom Dividend like a trendy new tech product.

That's left some traditional politicos impressed.

"An unknown individual with an interesting rap was able to raise more money than a sitting U.S. senator and the mayor of America's largest city," said New York Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf. "That says a lot about the campaign manager."

But Graumann said it has more to say about Yang's message.

"The reason we are doing well, and why this is not a flash in the pan, is because we're talking about the things no one's talking about," such as increasing rates of suicide and depression and their link to the disappearance of so many American jobs, he said.

Yang pairs such talk with a detailed list of policy ideas. He proposes funding federal campaigns through "Democracy Dollars": $100 payments from the government to voters, who could spend that money on the candidates of their choice. He wants to legalize marijuana. He wants the personal data that tech companies use for profit to be seen as everyone's personal property. He even wants to do away with the penny.

Graumann will be talking more about those things, too. On that live chat, Yang said his top aide will be "spreading his wings" as a spokesman for the campaign.

"Everywhere I go, they say, 'Andrew, you're great and all but give us more Zach!' " Yang said.

Lighthearted banter of that sort spiced up all 10 hours of Yang's online chat, which turned more than once to the topic of Graumann's obsession with the Bills.

"Zach is such a die-hard Bills Mafia member," Yang observed at one point. "It's very heartwarming."

"I freaking love 'em, man," Graumann replied.

See more here:
Meet the member of the Bills Mafia who's helping to lead the 'Yang Gang' - Buffalo News

' ); h3_html = ''+cat_head_params.sponsor.headline+''; cta = ''+cat_head_params.cta_text.text+'' atext = '

'+cat_head_params.sponsor_text+'

ADVERTISEMENT

As someone who likes to think he is organized or, as someone who at least likes to organize things Ive attempted to treat digital marketing terms similarly.

The same can be said for now-Googler and search industry pioneer Danny Sullivan when he began routinely using the term search engine marketing in 2001 to describe the overarching niche within the digital marketing industry that focuses on search engines.

As my thinking went (and as Sullivan admits he intended), search engine marketing, or SEM, would be (and once was) a useful way to summarize and classify both the paid and non-paid initiatives that go into digital marketing via search engines.

That would mean both the pay-per-click advertisements, or PPC ads, and the organic search initiatives commonly referred to as search engine optimization, or SEO, would fall under that SEM blanket term.

SEM would be the category of marketing through search engines. The paid (PPC) and non-paid (SEO) channels of SEM would both fall under it in terms of hierarchy.

And, even when you consider the literal terminology in coordination with this idea of SEO and PPC falling under that SEM blanket, it almost makes sense.

But, much like the English language, pop culture, and the Cleveland Browns, it simply cant work the way its supposed to.

There will always be exceptions to the rule (like the aforementioned conundrums above).

So, confusing it may be. But the search industry shapes itself, and it has not agreed with Mr. Sullivan over the years, adopting the term SEM to fit strictly into the paid search sphere.

It surely appears its there to stay, too.

PPC is SEM.

That is, pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is the same as search engine marketing (SEM), or at least a vital part of it.

SEO is none of those things.

What likely evolved over time due to the multiple potentially confusing digital marketing acronyms, as well as the need to define specific paid initiatives outside of Google paid search, brought two heavily used cost-driven marketing terms to mean the same thing (leading to even more potential confusion from newbies).

Ive always tried to make sense of the literal meaning of things, too, especially acronyms.

But from there, its easy to get even more lost in the idea.

While the breakdown of the abbreviation PPC is spot on regardless if its called PPC, CPC, paid search, search ads we know it is referring to paid search marketing, typically through search engines like Google and Bing.

Other terms and tactics used in digital marketing initiatives especially those tied to search marketing tactics (both paid and organic) may not be so simple and clearly defined, though.

We know SEO is search engine optimization.

But, to echo the sentiments of search pioneer Mike Grehan, that never did make much sense.

Marketers arent optimizing search engines; were optimizing content and websites for search engines (secondly, right after optimizing them for humans) so they can better understand, access, and relay our property to the masses.

Again, acronyms dont always make sense. So, naturally, this is a bit illogical.

Just like other things in life that dont always add up, there are some acronyms that will never make sense either.

Like Humvee, which doesnt stand for any words that start with U or E in them. (It actually stands for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, and was spawned from the original acronym, HMMWV.)

Weve also determined that PPC marketing is (at least now) the same as, or a very large part of, SEM.

But, while Wikipedia defines SEM as a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising, its not so quick to call them the same exact thing.

In fact, pay-per-click marketing has its own separate Wikipedia page than the topic of search engine marketing (despite there being plenty of discrepancies and confusion throughout the page).

The bottom line is this:

SEO is not a component of SEM.

And, while PPC is typically the largest and most demanding component of SEM, both PPC and SEM are paid initiatives that offer real-time data, ROI, and protected data that can only be accessed by advertisers of certain platforms.

The most important reason for clarification around these important terms and abbreviations is consistency.

Too many novice marketers, or marketers who arent specialists in maximizing value through search, have adopted these industry definitions and crossed them, combined them, confused them, and used them in a way that only further diluted their true meaning.

And even well-seasoned marketers who simply didnt agree with or possibly even completely understand the terms themselves help contribute to the turning tide as well.

Conferences have set up entire segments of their educational offering around the SEM naming convention when referring to strictly paid marketing efforts, but those efforts arent strictly done through search engines.

SEM, at least from this perspective, includes PPC ads on search engines but also on third-party platforms like Amazon and YouTube, as well as industry-focused platforms like Houzz, or Thumbtack, or Yelp. It also includes display ads and remarketing efforts.

And, as the opportunity to advertise on social media continues to grow, it tends to include paid advertising on those networks, too.

Keeping the definitions and their usage consistent is going to be the best way to keep the information organized in a way that makes sense for marketers.

It also helps us as marketers to convey our thoughts and ideas to clients and their stakeholders, our peers, or a friend who is curious about what exactly it is we do for a living.

When discussing digital marketing specifically search marketing and how it pertains to a brand or message, its important for marketers to use language that is digestible for clients and potential clients.

Needless to say, 8 out of 10 times, non-marketers already dont know the difference between incredibly different key terms.

Like SEO and PPC (or SEM), when speaking to someone outside of the search marketing community, these terms need to be clearly defined at least once, and typically more than once, throughout the conversation.

We all have those new-business pitch stories where a client goes on throughout years of his or her life thinking SEO is responsible for paid search ads or that paid search ads were achieved through organic optimizations.

First, the terms must be understood on a level playing field. Hopefully, this post helps do that.

We now are in agreement that:

Secondly, we must always consider who the audience is and the level of knowledge it has when it comes to digital marketing, particularly search marketing, while also ensuring we detail:

Lastly, and most importantly, we must never assume someone on the other end of our conversation knows what we are referring to when we use important industry terms like SEO, PPC, or SEM.

We must be concise and explain exactly what is we are talking about. Ensure the group partaking in the conversation is in agreement.

On a bad day, someone else in the room may disagree and tell us we are wrong.

On a good day, though, well get a room full of people all on the same page who are able to move forward and correctly use consistent terminology for some of the most important practices in digital marketing today.

More Resources:

View post:
SEM vs. SEO vs. PPC Defined: Whats the Difference? - Search Engine Journal

Inside the winding alleyways of Londons Camden Market, past walls of combat boots, money exchanges and bustling food vendors, a small white sign announces the presence of the complexs newest tenant: the Vagina Museum.

On Saturday, during its grand opening, the humble brick space dedicated to understanding and appreciating the vagina, vulva and gynecological anatomy was packed, mostly with women but from all generations. I heard visitors exchange confessions like I didnt know what a period was until I had one and I used to think that all vulvas look the same. Topics of discussion that are often reduced to hushed tones in public spaces, if they are brought up at all, were thrown around with ease and enthusiasm.

Its almost like theres an embargo in society around having very open, frank, honest and educational conversations around vaginas, said Marissa Conway, 30, who is a founder of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy and attended the opening. I didnt expect to have a visceral reaction of gratitude, but theres an element of relief that we can talk about this.

The museum is the first of its kind, an answer of sorts to Icelands Phallological Museum. With nearly 300 penises and penile parts from local animals, the specimen-rich institution ranks among Reykjaviks top tourist attractions. While this monument to male genitalia is in many ways an orthodox museum that revolves around a permanent collection of marvels, the Vagina Museum is not. Like the citys Migration Museum, which is focused on the countrys immigrants and refugees, and the Museum of Transology, which purports to be the largest collection dedicated to the lives of transgender people, the Vagina Museum is an institution whose mission is driven by social justice and public health initiatives.

Those expecting to see ancient fertility sculptures, medieval chastity belts or Victorian-era vibrators on display should know that the young, crowd-funded venture includes no such artifacts. At the Vagina Museum, visitors will discover informational posters and sculptures, a small shop with vaginally themed products, and an events calendar that includes a dinner for Trans Day of Remembrance and Cliterature (book club) meetings.

It was much smaller than I anticipated, which was disappointing, said Seren Mehmet, 28, a technical recruiter at Amazon. I wanted to see more vaginas!

The museum has secured a two-year lease on its Camden Market lot, but after that, there are plans for expansion. The ultimate goal is to build a permanent museum, but that takes a lot of time and resources. This is like our starter home, said the museums founder and director, Florence Schechter, in a phone interview ahead of the opening. The debut show, Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How to Fight Them, is intentionally general and instructive. I think its especially useful for younger people, because most of the time we have to figure this stuff out ourselves, said Jade Dagwell Douglas, 22, who is a student in London.

The anatomy has such complex politics around it, that we found it was best to first engage people through what they know, so we can teach them things they dont know, said Sarah Creed, the museums curator. Menstruation, cleanliness, sexual activity and contraception are things that a majority of people have discussed in some format, or experienced in some way. The exhibit addresses all of those topics.

We can talk about cold, hard facts all we want, but thats not going to change peoples minds. Its all about unpacking social constructs and changing perspective through engagement, Ms. Creed said.

Charlotte Wilcox, who illustrated the posters in the exhibit, said it was her job to be as inclusive as possible in bringing these myths to life. Rini Jones, 25, a policy and advocacy adviser in London, was pleasantly surprised by the exhibit. I was really skeptical of the show as an activist, queer woman and woman of color, she said. Theres a really pervasive and unhelpful equation of womens rights with often exclusively pink and, by association, white vaginas, in a way that is really trivializing and exclusionary.

Despite outraging some trolls, the team says they have been pleasantly surprised by the Vagina Museums reception. Their biggest challenges are on the internet, where their content is often censored for violating community guidelines.

Its not a human problem as much as it is an issue with algorithms, which are set to assume anything with the world vagina in it is adult content or porn, said Zoe Williams, the museums development and marketing manager. Our emails go to spam and our online ads get rejected, and its all because of stigma, Ms. Schechter added. Weve had to rely on organic reach.

My most pressing memory of the visit is not the information gleaned, but rather how comfortable I felt in the space. Its evident the Vagina Museum is striving to make male, transgender and intersex visitors feel just as welcome and included. The word woman" is used sparingly in wall text, and Muff Busters eagerly states that a vagina does not a woman make. One of its central messages is that dismantling gynecological taboos is not a gendered issue.

This is everyones dialogue, Ms. Creed said. By segregating the issue, we only perpetuate it.

Original post:
There Is a Vagina Museum in London - The New York Times

All of these are great resources, but theres another effective way to get the latest SEO scoop and expand your SEO knowledge at the same time: podcasts.

In the last few years, podcasts have witnessed a phenomenal growth. In Apples recent Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), the company announced there were over 555,000 podcasts on their platform, including 525,000 active podcasts.

At the same time, podcast listening has evolved into a hobby. A typical podcast listener subscribes to an average of 7 different shows.

So if youre a marketer whod like to be in the thick of things for all things concerning SEO, you should really consider subscribing to the SEO podcasts featured in this list.

Without further ado, here are the 10 best SEO podcasts you should listen to.

This is the official podcast of Search Engine Journal, a site dedicated to producing the latest search news and the best guides for the SEO community. While the show mainly focuses on SEO, they also occasionally cover other digital marketing topics such as social media marketing, PPC, and content marketing.

The Search Engine Journal Show is hosted by Brent Csutoras, Danny Goodwin, and Loren Baker. They invite top industry experts and authorities to share insights on trending SEO and marketing topics. Past guests on the show have included Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Land, Tim Soulo from Ahrefs, and several other prominent figures from the SEO community.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts| Stitcher

Marketing Scoop is a weekly podcast by SEMrush which uncovers the latest digital marketing headlines that impact your business and marketing strategy.

Hosts David Bain and Judith Lewis interview the leading minds in digital marketing to pick apart the latest trends in digital from SEO to advertising to content marketing. The podcast also features Success Story special episodes that cover best practices from local to global names like Vodafone and IKEA.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts|Spotify| Stitcher

EDGE of the Web is a weekly podcast by Site Strategics, an Indianapolis-based Internet marketing and website development firm which specializes in SEO using data and analytics.

Host Erin Sparks shares the latest news and trends in digital marketing and interviews some of the top names in SEO and marketing. Past guests on the show have included popular YouTuber Tim Schmoyer, Tim Soulo from Ahrefs, Rand Fishkin from Moz, and many more.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify| Pocket Casts

MozPod is Mozs SEO podcast which focuses on sharing lessons from digital marketing experts.

All episodes are hosted by instructors from Moz Academy and they discuss a wide variety of digital marketing concepts, from common terminology to recent changes and SEO best practices.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts|Google Podcasts| Pocket Casts

Hosted by Rich Brooks, The Agents of Change is a weekly podcast which teaches you how how to increase your online visibility, drive more qualified traffic to your site, and convert that traffic into leads and business.

Every week, the show features interviews from leading marketers from around the globe to get their insider tips and tricks on SEO, social media, and mobile marketing.

Past guests on the podcast have included Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneurs on Fire, online marketing expert Amy Porterfield, and many more.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts

Experts on the Wire is a monthly SEO podcast hosted by Dan Shure from Evolving SEO. While half of the podcast episodes focus directly on SEO, the other half explore topics like content marketing and social media. The podcast has been downloaded over 500,000 times, making it one of the most popular SEO podcasts on the web.

Past guests on the show have included Rand Fishkin from Moz, Noah Kagan from AppSumo, Brian Dean from Backlinko, and several others.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts

Hosted by digital marketing experts Robert OHaver and Matt Weber, Search Talk Live offers unique insights into the digital marketing industry, helping listeners improve their SEO and digital marketing knowledge.

Past guests on the show have included Sujan Patel from Mailshake, YouTube expert Tim Shmoyer, Rand Fishkin from Moz, Michael Roberts from SpyFu, and several other leading figures from the digital marketing community.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts

Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing is an SEO podcast hosted by online marketing experts Chris Burres and Matt Bertram. The hosts combine their years of experience in the industry to answer all the pertinent SEO questions: How do you get your website on the first page of Google? How do you keep it there? And more importantly, how do you make sure you convert that traffic into business once the users land on your site?

Its also one of the longest running podcasts on this list. The first episode aired back in September 2009.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Pocket Casts

As the title of the podcast suggests, SEO 101 teaches SEO from square one. Its one of the best SEO podcasts for beginners.

Hosts Ross Dunn and John Carcutt share helpful SEO knowledge for beginners without overwhelming listeners with technical details.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts

Technical SEO Podcast is a relatively new podcast hosted by SEO professionals Adam Gent and Dan Taylor.

Focusing purely on technical SEO, the podcast invites some of the greatest minds in technical SEO to share their wisdom, knowledge, insights, thoughts, and even occasional rants on the industry.

Listen on: Google Podcasts

As a bonus, Im including our own podcast Marketing Mantra in this list. While its in no way as well established or specialized as the SEO podcasts listed above, I try to share actionable SEO techniques from time to time techniques that have helped me scale up my blog and digital marketing agency. I also invite SEO experts and bloggers every so often to share their wisdom, insights, and success stories.

Past guests on the podcast have included SEO expert Matthew Woodward, Daniel Daines-Hutt from AmpMyContent, and Ish Jindal from TARS Chatbots.

Listen on:Apple Podcasts|Google Podcasts|Spotify

When it comes to SEO, we should always be alert of the shifting dynamics. One way to do that is by tuning in to these 10 best SEO podcasts and keeping ourselves informed of all the changes. So open your favorite podcast player and subscribe to these podcasts.

If theres an SEO podcast which is not featured in this list, please let me know in the comments section. Im always on the lookout for interesting SEO and marketing podcasts.

Side note: Be sure to check out my list of best marketing podcasts and best podcasts for entrepreneurs.

If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

Below is an infographic which summarizes this article. Please share it on Pinterest if you find it useful.

Related Articles

Read more from the original source:
10 Best SEO Podcasts to Master the Art of SEO - 99Signals - Tech News, Tech Hacks, & More

Giacomo Bagnara

If retail is dying, then pop-up shops might be what replace it.

During the 1970s and 80s, perhaps no company in America relied more on branding through architecture than Pizza Hut. The pizza chains burgeoning franchise business flooded the country with red-roofed brick buildings, the shape of which was so recognizable that it eventually became the companys logo. But the designs physical dominance didnt last, as Pizza Hut closed scores of its dine-in buffets in favor of smaller pickup-and-delivery storefronts. Now a drive through the American suburbs reveals the challenge of adapting the husks of dead stores to new uses. The buildings might now host Chinese buffets or jewelry stores that want to buy your gold, but their angular, hatlike roofs betray their past.

Pizza Hut is far from alone in its capitulation to Americas changing tastes. Even in prosperous, pedestrian-friendly cities such as New York, retail and restaurant vacancies have recently ticked up; in some neighborhoods, a quarter of local storefronts lack occupants. New Yorks most recent casualty is the fabled luxury department store Barneys. After the retailers bankruptcy last month, the inventory in the companys Madison Avenue store is being marked down for liquidation and soon the space will be empty, the usually lively and artistic display windows darkened. By the new year, whats left will be the Pizza Hut problem: A building everyone knows was intended for a very specific use will have to find a convincing new identity.

The old Barneys wont be empty for long, though. Whats taking its place isnt another stately, traditional luxury emporium serving the ladies-who-lunch crowd. Instead, the space will soon host four floors of pop-up shopsa trendy name for short-term stores intended to hype up customers and vanish before everyone gets bored. Pop-up shops have sprouted throughout American cities in recent years, and like many of those, the ones inside Barneys will include art installations and entertainment alongside a rotating set of designers who will sell their wares for a few weeks or months at a time. Those masterminding these abrupt appearances are all banking on the same short-term bet: People still want to shop in stores, even if what they want that store to be in six months is completely different.

New York City is expansive and full of rich people, but many of its most famous shopping districts are struggling. The same problems plague otherwise burgeoning urban areas around the country: rising rents, changing tastes, and the omnipresence of online shopping. In suburban American malls, shoppers are bored with longtime tenants such as Sears and Gap, and the same stuff is available everywhere. Businesses close and their storefronts sit vacant. As these businesses evaporate, people have fewer reasons to stroll past the surrounding stores and cafs that survive.

The effect is at its extreme in cities most fashionable urban shopping districts, such as New York Citys SoHo and West Village, where stores are often left vacant on purpose. In these areas, many businesses still want footholds and people still want to try on new jeans or eat at new restaurants. But absent rent regulations that prod landlords to work with existing tenants or fill their empty stores, some hold out for top dollar, letting their properties sit fallow until Chase, for instance, decides it needs a new bank of ATMs. This tactic can lead to big payouts for property owners, but the cost is that it boosts rents in the surrounding area and gives mom-and-pop designers, merchandisers, and restaurateurs fewer options to get themselves in front of real-life audiences.

Related video: Online shopping secrets retailers don't want you to know about (provided by GoBankingRates)

UP NEXT

Out of that tension comes the pop-up store. Pop-ups arent a totally new concept: Halloween and Christmas-supply stores have been doing seasonal stints in vacant strip-mall spaces across America for decades. But Thomai Serdari, a luxury-marketing strategist and professor at New York University, nods to the 2008 financial collapse as the moment that helped more types of businesses realize that parachuting into a trendy neighborhood often makes more financial sense than committing to hang around for 20 years. No one wants to invest long-term, and brands dont want to take risks with inventories, Serdari says. Now landlords court pop-up stores with easy-to-adapt interiors so that they can benefit from a few months of cash flow without having to rule out the Wells Fargo branch of their dreams.

If you live or shop in a major American city, you might have already noticed the trend without realizing what you were looking at. Turn a familiar corner, and a new makeup branda name vaguely familiar from Instagram adsmight be offering virtual-reality makeovers. Turn another, and a buzzy young chef might be slinging experimental ice-cream flavors inside a diner you thought had just closed. If youve ever walked into what was nominally a clothing store, only to be prompted to acquire the things you want through home delivery by ordering them from a bank of iPads, youve almost certainly encountered a pop-up. And if everything goes as planned, something new will be in the same spot by the time the novelty wears off.

When vendors are chosen carefully, pop-ups can bring the mom-and-pop feeling back to neighborhoods that were once known for their unique urban cultures but that now host a retinue of national pharmacies and fast-casual salad joints. But temporary-retail models havent just piqued the interest of plucky upstarts. While some pop-ups bring ephemeral art galleries or music venues to neighborhoods, others host Uniqlo stores, exclusive opportunities to lie on Casper mattresses, or long lines for limited-edition Louis Vuitton handbags. In particular, internet-based start-ups such as the clothing retailer Everlane and the luggage brand Away have found the pop-up model convenient. People who have seen their products online get to inspect them in person, often alongside shopper-friendly amenities such as gratis cocktails and personalization services such as monogramming.

In the pop-up-shop economy, place and time are as essential to success as whats going on inside the storefronts themselves. People want to have a day out, and they want to tell their friends they bought the new print hanging in their apartment at a cute little boutique everyone else missed out on. Perhaps no one has capitalized on this better than Appear Here, a company that acts as a pop-up middleman, streamlining the process for both landlords and tenants who might not want to deal personally with frequent turnover or searching for open-minded property owners. The seeds of Appear Here were planted in 2012, when its eventual founder, Ross Bailey, wanted to lease a storefront for a couple of weeks in London to sell T-shirts and prints with cheeky images of the queen reimagined as David Bowiethe kind of idea thats not really compatible with the five-, 10-, and 20-year retail leases that have long been the norm in major cities. Landlords kept hanging up the phone on him, he says. He tried to sell the shirts online, but business was slow.

Eventually, a landlord relented to a short-term agreement, and Bailey claims to have sold more shirts in a day in Londons Soho neighborhood than he did in a month on the internet. Everyone is talking about how experiences are becoming the future, he says, referring to the now-conventional wisdom that young shoppers want to do things instead of buy things. But, he realized, physical places to have these experiences matter, too. Bailey launched Appear Here in 2014, and the company now has hundreds of shop listings that can be rented for as short as a single day or as long as a few years in cities across America and Europe. The company works with giant brands, such as Nike and Coca-Cola, and celebrities such as Kanye West and Michelle Obama, but Bailey maintains that most of its clients are independent businesses.

Global conglomerates and megastars have taken an interest in pop-up shops because they can be useful in ways that permanent retail stores arent. They dont need to be self-sustaining retail channels in perpetuity, so how much coffee is sold or how many pastel suitcases find new homes often doesnt matter. Instead, its about marketing. The businesses are betting that shoppers, besotted as they are with experiences, might browse a street in the same way theyd browse a magazine. Internet marketing through search engines and social media used to be a way for new companies with limited resources to stand out, but now theyre just as clogged with well-funded competition as Bleecker Street was in 2005. Renting a storefront for a few months puts you on equal footing with your neighbors for anyone who might stroll by.

A pop-up shop, by its very nature, can feel gimmicky. But during the heyday of the department stores that are now dying, their proprietors understood the importance of a little razzle-dazzle in a way that contemporary retailers just dont. Somewhere along the line, department stores got taken over by accountants rather than showmen, Bailey says. The British luxury retailer Selfridges once drew in thousands of people by displaying the first plane to ever fly across the English Channel, within weeks of its historic journey. Modern shopping, during the era when people enjoyed it most, wasnt just about selecting a product as efficiently as possible.

Stores do more for places than sell things, however. In healthy local economies, they also provide steady employment for those who live nearby and act as stable resources for their neighborsa place to eat breakfast, a place to get your bike fixed, a place to get your shoes resoled. Pop-up shops might fill storefronts and pique curiosities, but they dont return needed services to places that have seen them wiped out by Starbucks and Walgreens. They also dont provide stable jobs. A store designed to close is often a store designed to lay off all its workers.

Already in New York City, you can see the warning signs of what happens when pop-up retailers get too good at what theyre doing, and when shoppers get a little too excited by faux scarcity. Outside Supreme, a permanent streetwear store in SoHo that mimics a pop-up frenzy by releasing merchandise only in limited-supply drops, long lines form on the sidewalk every week, clogging streets and annoying locals. The store functions on the same sense of urgency and social currency that makes people crowd into the pop-up shops of Instagram-famous clothing brands. One needs to think about what type of business is relevant for a particular neighborhood and what type of people its going to attract and why, and what it does to the urban fabric around it, Serdari cautions. There is danger in creating too much hype.

Amanda Mull is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Go here to read the rest:
The zombie storefronts of America - msnNOW