The great return of the Supper Clubs
The craziest immersive experience concepts (and a small selection of very cool pop ups)
Good morning!
I hope you're all well, despite the cold and the first raclettes on the way! I thought I'd already told you about Club Komando... but I've never shown you the creative search engine, which is a tool I use almost every day to find inspiration:
And if you're interested, click here to join the Club.
I'm also thinking about other formats to enhance the newsletter: behind-the-scenes interviews with the people who dreamed up the campaigns we're talking about, to delve into the process of achieving the results; other physical trend watch events like the one in June; creative dinners or weekends with inspiring speakers and workshops... But you have to prioritise, so tell me what speaks to you most (and if you're a dircom or an agency and you're interested in one of these formats, write to me to become a partner):
On that note, enjoy your reading, your herbal tea and your hot water bottle!
🫡 Kéliane — keliane@komando.studio
Half comedy, half dinner: Mam Sham's immersive culinary experiences
In short — It's the story of two British creatives, Maria Georgiou and Rhiannon Butler, who have launched zany dinner concepts in the form of culinary experiences combining humour and gastronomy. The concept? One dinner, 3 dishes linked to comedians' acts. The result? Food presented in improbable and creative packaging, surfing on the nostalgic vibe.
Why it matters — The creative duo explain that the idea came to them from the supper club trend, a concept that originated in California in the early 1900s and basically refers to any paid dinner outside the traditional restaurant format, with the distinctive feature of being unique/ephemeral, unlike a restaurant where diners come regularly. In the case of Mam Sham, the concept is taken a step further, because the aim is not just to have creative dinners in terms of form, but to use them to tell stories. What I liked best:
To go further — So I dug into some cool supper club concepts:
A restaurant with just one table: this is the UNA project of British chef Martin Milesi, who welcomes just 12 guests in a clock tower above St Pancras station or in the middle of the forest, complete with tinsel, open-air cinema and artistic performances.
Charles Kaisin's Surrealist Diners with duck peaches in the middle of the tables
Dinner in an old 1967 London Underground Victoria Line train.
The recurring Wasted Supper format from Dinner Ladies. The concept: guests are invited to bring leftovers which the chefs transform into dinner, to raise awareness of food waste.
In France, we have good examples with Ona or the short-lived restaurant run by Michelin-starred chef Alexandre Gauthier in a former car park, where the location was kept secret until the reservation was made.
→ See all Mam Sham formats on their Instagram account
And what if the collections were now revealed far from the catwalks of Fashion Week?
In short — Thom Browne decided to replace the traditional Fashion Week show with a more intimate and immersive experience. The brand took over a New York restaurant in the trendy West Village for a candlelit dinner and live guitar, with invited celebrities and influencers getting an up-close look at its new collection.
Why it matters — Because they're not the only ones to have taken the catwalk out of its usual setting (cf Jacquemus), and this trend is gathering pace: this year, Tommy Hilfiger also took a step to the side by presenting its collection on the Staten Island Ferry. We can therefore see a more global trend among luxury brands, which are seeking to offer genuine ‘experiences’ - even if the term is now used and abused - where they can showcase their DNA, their aesthetic and their philosophy; moments of entertainment that create emotions and that participants will want to share (in the place of the brand, multiplying the impact...). In short, what if luxury brands, instead of just creating boutiques, were to create more complete universes in pop-up formats?
→ See Thom Browne's dinner show and the one of Tommy Hilfiger on the ferry
Odieux Bobby's surprise packs
In short — Photographer Borin Allin, better known as Odieux Boby on Insta (161k followers), is perpetuating a signature format: he regularly hides some of his prints in a city and shares clues in his story to set off a real treasure hunt. First come, first served to win them.
Why it matters — It's not the first to do so, of course: we all remember Lena Situations, for example, at the opening of her pop-up store at Hôtel Mahfouf. But it's an extremely powerful lever of engagement that I'm always surprised not to see more of from brands or events.
→ See an example of a surprise pack in Lille (and the winner's very funny private message)
The lunchbox version of the magazine
In short — To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the McSweeney publishing house has brought out its literary magazine... in the form of a metal lunchbox, painted like a magazine cover. What's inside? Panini-style author trading cards (with stats and anecdotes on the back), pencils that change colour as you write, an anthology, mini works of art...
Why it matters — For rethinking the magazine's traditional paper format. Because, in practical terms, people who had been subscribing to the magazine for months or years suddenly received this strange box on their doormat, full of surprises: the wow effect of a physical object, especially when it's unexpected.
→ Behind the scenes of this lunchbox explained by its designers
To go further — The publishing house has also taken advantage of the period to come up with a cool Advent calendar concept: 24 customised limited edition mini-books, mixing comics, poetry, essays and novels.
What if... we had an audio guide on the trains?
In short — This is the idea of this product designer, who tested a first prototype on the Paris-Marseille line, with around thirty key points and the history and specific features of the regions crossed, as the landscape unfolds. And... Linkedin went wild (+8000 likes on his post). So he's continuing the project by working on other TGV lines.
Why it matters — Because this is one of the SNCF's challenges (to create a sexy image around train travel, highlighting the advantages of slow tourism) and a shared interest with tourist offices, regions or players such as Chillowé to highlight getaways close to home. And why not an audio guide... embodied by celebrities like Edouard Baer or Stéphane Bern? In short, a whole host of possible partnerships!
→ See the prototype of this famous audio guide
Buying billboards... to prevent junk food giants from advertising on them
In short — Every year, young people in the UK are exposed to 15 billion ads for junk food online and 3.6 billion on TV... while 1 in 3 young people in the UK is at risk of suffering from diet-related health problems. So Bite Back, an NGO campaigning for better regulation of fast food multinationals, has rented a number of billboards in high-traffic areas of the UK over the summer (shopping centres, petrol stations, Birmingham etc.)... to prevent junk food ads.
Why it matters — Because we're not used to seeing this kind of ‘defensive’ operation by NGOs to occupy the field at strategic times for lobbies with a minimalist message... which then attracts attention.
Bonus — The art of teasing
The remix of ‘Nightcall’ by Phoenix, Kavinsky and Angèle, which was a big hit during the Olympics, will soon be available. And to announce it, they had fun broadcasting an answering machine number where you come across a conversation between Angèle and the leader of Phoenix, Thomas Mars... So I called! :) You hear a discussion between Thomas Mars and Angèle, who tells him that the song is ready and asks if she wants to hear it, then adds Kavinsky to the call... before playing an extract of the song.
IT MAY BE A DETAIL FOR YOU, BUT...
🚂 Goodies from a legendary train — Designers Violaine & Jérémy have come up with the box that travellers receive before boarding the Venice Simplon Express, containing an attractive paper map, luggage tags and a notebook. It's high-flying work inspired by the art deco aesthetic of the 1940s, with sublime details (motifs, illustrations, quality of embossing, etc.) as a foretaste of the mythical journey that awaits them.
🙈 Fake it — The simplest ideas are often the best, issue 348: Usbek et Rica had fun putting itself on display everywhere for the launch of its new magazine. Or almost everywhere. It's a technique now used by many brands (including Green Got) to create buzz on the web at a lower cost.
⬅️➡️ Swipe right to move me forward — You may have noticed, but on Instagram, the formats that work best are often the most poetic, as shown by this minimalist and well-thought-out carousel by Seb La Frite to bring to life one of his expeditions.
🧀 What does a woman who has just given birth look forward to most? — To sink your teeth into cheese or charcuterie, of course. I really like the idea of this delivery brand, which has seized on the insight to offer a free meal to be delivered to the maternity ward for all young mothers this summer.
🔀 Reverse CV — Decathlon is always looking to recruit. Its latest idea? Put the company's CV on Linkedin. It's not a great in the execution, but the idea should be copied.
💖 Giving a note to a stranger... — That's the strange but poetic concept behind this account. The idea? A piece of paper folded in 2 is given to someone in the street with a note telling them how great they are (in short, free kindness). And the reactions are touching.
🫡 Taking it the right way — The Royal Navy has chosen an interesting angle for its new recruitment campaign: more intimate videos, with a more ‘docu’ style of editing, focusing on the motivations of their recruits when they take the step of enlisting (getting away from a daily life marked by screens to live real experiences, finding a framework and order, finding a spirit of camaraderie...).
🌟 Finally some real customer reviews — For a few months now, UGC has made it possible for members of its loyalty programme to post a review of a film (which enables them to check that they've seen it): it makes you wonder why this isn't still the case for restaurants, where you have to provide a photo of the bill, for example.
💡 Are you familiar with ‘Oblique strategies’? — It's a card game developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in 1975, which is a bit like the ancestor of the artists' prompt and is still used today to push back the limits of creativity and unlock ideas.
⛱️ Pop-up ice cream — I'm a big fan of the pop-up store designed by Diptyque in Seoul this summer, with its pop colours, beach atmosphere... and ice creams, of course!
💊📙 Healing ills with words — That's the ambition of Poetry Pharmacy, London's first ‘poetry pharmacy’. The concept? A ‘poetry on prescription’ bookshop where customers can choose books of poetry by emotion or buy boxes of ‘medoc’’ with poems rolled up like capsules. Proof that bringing together two worlds that on paper have nothing to do with each other (pharmacy/poetry) can be a powerful pop-up store concept.
That's all for today! See you on Tuesday 1st October for the next issue!
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