Remember the Marmite store last Christmas on Regent Street? It came, was admired, and then it went. It was, in essence, a celebration of the black yeast-based condiment and at the time was remarkable for being a single-product proposition pop-up store.
Now it’s back, albeit in a slightly different form, and it has become just a little more mainstream. And in place of a highly visible unit on the lower reaches of, debatably, London’s most glamorous thoroughfare, the latest iteration of the phenomenon is to be found in the basement of Selfridges on Oxford Street. It’s been designed once more by SunHouse Creative and the selling space, allowing for the fact that this time round there is no tea, Marmite and toast cafe, is about the same size.
The difference is that it’s in a department store and what’s clear is that the good folks have thought long and hard about how to drum up the same level of attention as they managed to attract in 2009. In practice, this means that while it may not be quite as agitprop in feel as the Regent Street store was, the staff manning the space are dressed in colours specific to the brand - red, yellow and black - and ask passing shoppers whether they “love it or hate it”.
The area brightens up what is one of the less obviously attractive parts of the department store and will be in place until the end of January. It’s also a measure of just how successful the Regent Street venture was that there are Marmite pop-ups in the Selfridges stores in Manchester and Birmingham as well.
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