Backlash’s Katie Peake on why experiential retail matters to fashion now more than ever

In an increasingly digital-first world, physical activations remain one of the most engaging ways for fashion brands to emotionally connect with customers, says Katie Peake, Co-Founder of brand experience agency Backlash.

Having worked in experiential advertising for the last 15 years, she has seen first-hand how the popularity of pop-ups has exploded. As customer expectations keep rising, Peake says the real challenge today is pushing the creative boundaries of what a pop-up can look like, and finding the many different ways it can deliver value for the brand.

In this interview with TheIndustry.fashion, she reflects on why physical activations continue to be the most powerful form of capturing consumers’ hearts and minds, how Backlash’s creative-first approach sets the agency apart from competitors, and how experiential retail can solve real business problems while also sparking entirely new ways of connecting with customers.

Why experiential retail matters now

Since Peake launched Backlash in 2017, pop-ups have become such a fixture of fashion and beauty marketing that consumers now almost expect them.

And there are good reasons for this.

“Experiential is one of the only forms of marketing that actually can speak to people one-to-one,” explains Peake.

For her, the format’s value lies in its ability to strengthen customer community and loyalty. Unlike a digital ad, which a consumer might engage with for a second or two, visiting an in-person destination demands dedicated attention from its audience and allows for a much more memorable interaction.

Especially as, on average, a customer spends between five and 45 minutes inside a pop-up. “That's a really long time to have your target audience inside a physical advert, and I think that's what makes pop-ups so successful,” Peake adds.

Backlash x Sunglass Hut's Covent Garden pop-up

Personalisation and community building can be particularly impactful ways of ensuring a successful pop-up, since consumers are looking for experiences that are otherwise unavailable in a brand's existing physical retail or e-commerce spaces.

In Peake’s experience, personalisation opportunities that work particularly well are product customisation services, or offering limited-edition merchandise that's not available anywhere else.

Digital media, meanwhile, remains key to community building. It doesn't just help followers find the pop-up – it lets visitors share their experiences, strengthening community bonds both online and in-store.

But experiential retail can go far beyond simply selling products. It can also help change the perception of a brand.

One of Backlash's earlier projects, for example, saw it launch a denim laundrette pop-up with retailer NEXT. This addressed a difficult challenge: attracting younger shoppers to the retailer's jeans offering.

By creating a pop-up space that was clearly meant to engage a younger audience, NEXT finally attracted its target customer. Visitors received one-to-one jeans consultations and could even exchange an old pair of jeans for a new one, with the activation exceeding its target-audience KPIs and follow-up survey benchmarks.

Years of delivering brand activations have given Backlash a clear understanding of how the right combination of creative, design and execution drives impact. The agency has managed activations where visitors arrived at sunrise and queued for hours just to get a glimpse of the space.

Today, the challenge isn't getting people through the door, Peake explains. It's making sure their experience stands out in an increasingly crowded market.

For Backlash, that differentiation comes down to one thing: consistently creating a sense of wonder.

Katie Peake’s route to Backlash

Peake has worked in experiential marketing for more than 15 years, having started in traditional advertising across television, print and campaign production. Her move into physical experiences began when advertising agencies received briefs that did not fit their existing media departments.

“I found this way more interesting than TV and print because I actually found thinking in a 3D world easier,” she shared. “It’s not an advert that you see on TV. It’s an advert that’s there for a few days, and people get to walk through.”

Peake later became a Creative Director at 26, working on experiential projects for Coca-Cola and Nestlé. Together with her colleague Aarron Taylor, she built an experiential creative department from the ground up, later using this experience to launch Backlash in 2017.

Following the launch, the pair quickly built strong relationships with both fashion and beauty brands, expanding its client base through word of mouth. Debenhams was among its first clients, with the retailer commissioning Backlash to deliver an entire wedding show. Despite a tight budget, Backlash delivered – and the project set the foundations for how the company still approaches work today.

Central to Backlash’s value proposition is its identity as a creative-owned agency, with its co-founders infusing every project with a shared commitment to original thinking, innovation and thoughtful design.

“We’re focused on creativity and we’re focused on the product that we create being high quality, standing out and being something we’re proud of,” Peake shares.

This is also where the agency gets its name from: Backlash reflects the team's drive to do things differently from how other agencies might approach a project.

Backlash x Marc Jacob's 'The Big Silver Box' pop-up

The Backlash approach

The creative-first ethos runs through every step of a Backlash project, starting with a thorough examination of the brief, intended audience and business problem before a visual concept is proposed.

“We really pull apart briefs, and we really try and understand the brand before we come up with ideas,” Peake explains. “So we take quite a bit of time on that creative part, which sets us apart.”

The creative team may spend around a week developing the initial direction, working closely with the client to ensure the concept is fully formed before the implementation begins.

“A pop-up is really exciting because you can make it whatever shape, structure or materials you want,” shares Peake. “So the rulebook can almost go out of the window, as long as you're making sure it’s still got the look and feel of your brand.”

By spending more time on the creative ideation, Backlash ensures that the activation not only brings a fresh perspective but also helps the brand stay ahead of the competition by creating a genuinely unique experience.

With so many possibilities and unbridled creative freedom, it becomes even more important for the brief to be clearly defined.

Peake’s top tip for any fashion brand eager to explore launching an activation would be to focus on just one objective – be that changing brand perception or driving awareness, and work from there.

“It’s about focusing on the number one thing that you want to achieve as a brand, not the eight things,” Peake said. “Don’t overthink it. Speak to people who are experts in that field, and we can overthink it for you.”

That philosophy shapes every aspect of how Backlash approaches the work. Rather than asking brands to juggle multiple suppliers and moving parts, the agency simplifies the process by bringing creative, design and project management together under one roof.

Specialist construction partners are managed on clients' behalf, while Backlash oversees every stage of delivery. Its full-service offering spans location sourcing, staffing, health and safety, visual merchandising, retail systems and installation, giving brands a single point of contact and a seamless route from concept to completion.

By accommodating both regional and global approvals, concepts can be adapted quickly, ensuring the final experience reflects the brand intentions in the best possible way.

That’s once again where Backlash’s agile, collaborative approach with clients stands out.

The agency’s track record speaks for itself. It has already produced a number of standout case studies, one of the most successful being the Marc Jacobs activation, "The Big Silver Box".

What defined this activation was that “it was completely different to anything that they had in their UK stores,” according to Peake.

“It was specifically launching a collaboration with Kim Kardashian and in that pop-up were items that you couldn't get anywhere else.

“So it was not only visually really different to what the brand was doing in its flagship, but it also gave shoppers a reason to go there because it was the only place that you can get a very limited edition item.”

The month-long installation was not only successful in achieving Marc Jacobs’ objectives, and it also won Best UK Pop-Up at the VM & Display Awards, with parts of its internal fit-out later reused in a flagship store.

Backlash x Marc Jacob's 'The Big Silver Box' pop-up

Measuring success

Of course, success can be measured in different ways. As budgets grow, brands are understandably looking for ways to measure marketing impact more comprehensively.

As Peake outlines, success metrics need to correspond to the brand's key objectives — and that means looking beyond hard numbers alone. That's not to say numbers don't matter: data points like footfall, sales, social reach and customer feedback can all be collected and tracked. But they only tell part of the larger success story. The harder thing to capture is the long-term impression a campaign leaves on a customer's mind.

Take one of Backlash's more recent pop-ups, with global retail chain Sunglass Hut. Visitors could browse a small selection of best-selling sunglasses in person, then scan a QR code to access the brand's full range via its e-commerce store. Each visitor also received a small gift — a very useful lens wipe that I still carry around in my purse — that doubled as a voucher for future use.

It's a great example of how a pop-up can pique someone's interest and create a memorable experience while also building in long-term value.

A visitor might not buy a new pair of sunglasses that day, but they walk away inspired, carrying a call to action they can act on later.

While it is hard to quantify the exact impact of the pop-up on future sales, it is undeniable that an impression has been made that will influence consumers’ future decisions.

What comes next for fashion activations

Consumers will continue to expect more from the pop-ups they visit, which makes it ever-more important for brands to push the creative envelope.

For Peake, fashion shows demonstrate how visually stunning sets and storytelling can generate impact far beyond immediately measurable data points. The same principle can be adapted to physical spaces, as they can become a brand’s creative microcosm, instead of another retail outlet.

In other words, experiential retail's best days are still ahead — there's no shortage of creative, disruptive ways for brands to bring their customer proposition to life.

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