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Fabergé at Harrods, London
Magical Mirror
Retail theatre, reimagined as marketing — a spinning optical illusion in the window, and a mirror inside that let you wear the collection.
P/12 · Back to projects
Fabergé at Harrods, London
Retail theatre, reimagined as marketing — a spinning optical illusion in the window, and a mirror inside that let you wear the collection.
Client
Fabergé
Location
Harrods, London
Format
Phygital
Collection
Necklaces & earrings
01 — Background
Fabergé had a window display at Harrods in London, and wanted more from it. Something magical enough to stop people in their tracks and draw them inside to see the new collection.
That year the collection was necklaces and earrings, and it needed marketing in a way nobody had tried on Brompton Road before.
02 — Problem
A window can stop someone. It can't tell you whether it worked.
Problem, in detail
Fabergé had the display, but no confidence about how people would engage with it, and no way to track whether it was effective.
There was a second question underneath the first: how do you get people to talk about a collection and share it, using something more innovative than a photograph and a caption?
03 — Solution
Working with our partners, we built a physical-digital experience around a trompe l'oeil for the centrepiece window installation.
The illusion works on a simple principle: two images mounted on either side of a disc, spun fast enough that the eye composes them into a single image. A machine was constructed to stand in the window and spin six images across three discs at once.
That was the street attraction. Messaging alongside it explained that visitors could create their own illusion in-store using our magical dressing mirror — itself visible from the window, sitting on its dressing table.
An image on each face of a disc, spun quickly, resolves into a single composition in the viewer's eye.
A purpose-built machine in the window spun all three together — the thing that stopped people on the pavement.
Sat at the dressing table, visitors photographed themselves in an iPad running a bespoke app, chose a piece, and ran the effect to see themselves wearing it.
Saving a creation let them send the video and photos to friends across social channels, carrying an invitation to come and try it. Tagged #faberge@harrods.
04 — Impact
Within hours the hashtag was trending and people were talking about it on social media, posting the videos with personalised messages and turning them into memes.
Fabergé could see how many people the window had actually pulled into the store — the number a physical display never gives you.
Which pieces visitors chose to try, which they preferred, and which they chose to share.
Every saved creation carried an invitation, so the campaign spread through the visitors themselves rather than through paid placement.
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