Why Urban Outfitters is building sandcastles and igloos at Chicago's O’Hare Airport

If you’re flying into or out of Chicago O’Hare Airport’s Terminal 2 this holiday season, you might spot a grand pop-up outfitted with a colorful lounge, makeshift igloos and sandcastles, and live programming featuring young creators and influencers.

The “Club Holiday” activation is part of Urban Outfitters’s multilayered holiday campaign, which also includes an upcoming New York pop-up with Nike and a holiday wish list integration with Canva.

But why would a fashion retailer set up shop in an airport? For Urban Outfitters, the rationale is simple: Make holiday travel feel more stress-free, “immersive,” and memorable, the company said in a statement.

In a conversation with Retail Brew, Cyntia Leo, head of brand marketing at Urban Outfitters, broke down the retailer’s thinking, and discussed shifting consumer expectations and why IRL experiences still matter, especially to younger shoppers.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What was the idea behind doing a pop-up at the Chicago airport?

Traveling is very stressful and we also know that Gen Z is really craving that IRL experience. So we said, “How do we make traveling a little bit more easy, fun, and exciting for them, and then how do we bring that excitement that comes with that holiday season directly to them?” That is really how we came up with a few of these pop-ups, really showing up in those high-traffic places that we know that they’re going to be in.

We’re so excited to debut our own lounge experience…What we’re also really excited about is a lot of our customers, they can’t enjoy that lounge experience. They might not necessarily have that special credit card that’s needed, or whatever that access that might be needed, for a typical lounge experience during the season. So we were like, “Let’s make something that’s no credit cards needed, and you can come in and you can enjoy this experience with us and have a lot of fun.”

Why does Gen Z respond so well to experiential marketing?

Gen Z has really grown up digitally native customers. They are on socials, but they also have asked for IRL experiences. They’ve also asked for community and connection, and it’s just something that is really important for this customer. While they enjoy being on the digital experience, they also enjoy being with their community and being with their friends and their people.

In what ways has consumers’ shopping behavior changed over the years?

First and foremost, they’re planning earlier than ever. So we go back to wish listing. They aren’t really thinking about, “What are the key things that I really want?”

They’re planning. And what we were seeing is that they were planning even as early as October, starting to create that wish list and seeing what they want.

The second thing we’re seeing is that they get really excited about experiential experiences, especially within retail. So we have this platform called UO On Rotation. Currently, we’re live with Ugg, and we’re just seeing such incredible excitement around really coming into our stores and having an experiential experience when they’re thinking, when they’re shopping, whether that is a new way to feel product [or] a new way to experience products.