The brand pop-ups people are still talking about a week later come down to one design decision that no one saw coming. It’s the installation that everyone photographs, talks about at the event, and is the subject of internet buzz. Creating this type of installation often comes down to creative instinct: what is going to be the eye-catching pop-up of the event?
What Modern Brand Pop-Ups Get Right
Tapping into this “design instinct” matters more than ever right now. Event Marketer’s EventTrack 2025 research found that nearly 72% of event attendees actively capture and share brand activation content online. However, it’s never been a more challenging or opportune time to get it right. As brands pivot to immersive, in-person experiences, the activations that earn that kind of organic reach tend to get a few specific things right. In our experience, these include a few different traits.
The Elmhurst Split Flap installation is a 3 Row x 32 Column display, rotating through key brand messaging, quotes, trivia, and more.
At the Natural Products Expo, their Split Flap display centered the booth, serving as a signature focal point for the experience.
The display’s mechanical sound turned heads from across the trade show floor, creating what he called “a natural curiosity that connects them to your content in a way that other displays don’t.” – Will Mazzei, product designer at Humid Creative Agency
Lead with Sensory Experience
The pop-up activations generating the most organic sharing right now lead with sound, movement, and texture before they ask anyone to read anything. In a venue where every competitor is running a loop on a flat screen, that kind of sensory experience gives your booth something a static panel never will – a reason to walk over.
Will Mazzei, product designer at Humid Creative Agency, captured it when Elmhurst 1925 used our Split Flap at the Natural Products Expo East. The display’s mechanical sound turned heads from across the trade show floor, creating what he called “a natural curiosity that connects them to your content in a way that other displays don’t.” Signs of the Times Magazine included the installation in its broader look at what makes experiential displays earn attention at trade expos.
Stage a Narrative, Not Just a Space
The most memorable brand pop-ups are built like sets, sequencing an experience rather than presenting a product. Every staging choice contributes to the larger arc.
Air France demonstrated this with their Paris for Dessert activation in SoHo, NYC. Experiential agency Gradient built a five-night immersive dining pop-up inside a recreated airplane fuselage serving French cuisine curated by chef Daniel Boulud. A Split Flap display, cinematic in both sound and movement and rooted in the same airport heritage that defines Air France’s visual identity, served as the announcement element to reveal the evening’s contest winner. The campaign generated nearly 100 million media impressions.
The Delta Airlines 17:00 Bar took a similar approach by pairing the airline’s travel identity with Seattle’s craft beer culture through deliberate staging and signage. In both cases, the pop-up succeeded because rather than just representing the brand, it put guests inside the brand.
The Air France Split Flap installation was a 3 Row x 15 Column display that fit in perfectly with the airport aesthetic.
The Picture Flap installation for Coachella was a 4 Row x 10 Column custom display.
Minimalism and One Signature Moment
The pop-ups that get photographed most often are the ones that earn attention through a clean visual identity, restrained staging, and a single element that commands attention. In other words, they do less, not more. At Coachella, the White Claw activation anchored the entire space around a Picture Flap countdown display.
When the immersive clock hit zero, Charlie XCX and Bebe Rexha appeared for a meet-and-greet. Thousands of attendees who’d been watching the gallery-style display documented the reveal in real time and shared it across social platforms. Everything else was staging in service of that one simple, yet effective moment.
Nostalgia Design and the Analog Room
The analog room is the pop-up format gaining the most real momentum. It delivers a designed space that sets aside screens entirely in favor of texture, craft, and objects that carry visual weight, and attracts attention precisely because it’s rare.
What’s driving this is nostalgia design. Objects with visible working parts, such as mechanical displays, hand-printed signage, and analog technology that moves, come across as authentic in ways that digital alternatives can rarely achieve.
Capital One’s Split Flap activation at SWXW cycled through customer milestones and event programming. Their senior creative team called it a moment of magic that a digital screen could not create, as attendees from neighboring booths kept wandering over to watch.
For more on how iconic signage shapes brand personality, see our post on personality design for brands.
The custom Capital One Split Flap was a 6 Row x 32 Column installation.
Adaptive Displays for Multi-Day Activations
One advantage of these inventive experiential displays is content flexibility. A three-day festival, a five-night dining pop-up, and a trade show expo all call for different messaging, and static signage can’t adapt to any of them. Freeman’s 2025 Commercial Trends research puts it directly: face-to-face engagement is where buying decisions happen. For activations running multiple days, the ability to evolve your messaging around that opportunity is part of what makes a display worth its footprint.
Our Split Flap displays are available as rentals for exactly these scenarios. SXSW, Expo West, and Dreamforce have all used them as attention-generating centerpieces. For activations centered on imagery over text, Picture Flap brings the same adaptive capability to visual storytelling by cycling through campaign photography, countdown sequences, or brand imagery on a programmable schedule. Legible from up to 100 feet away, these displays share messages that are easy to see and read in crowded festival floors or convention halls.
Experiential Displays for Memorable Brand Activations
Whether the choice is sound, narrative, minimalism, or nostalgia, these highly effective activations use movement and subtle sound to attract attendees. In a sea of digital screens and static signage, Split Flap and Picture Flap create a refreshing and attention-worthy alternative.
Want to see what any of these formats looks like in a real activation? Browse our Split Flap and Picture Flap project pages.