What happens when every brand on the shelf is designed to be different?

That’s the question raised by Pop Up Grocer, a curated retail experience in NYC described as “all the buzziest brands on Instagram under one roof” and “playland for packaging nerds.” It also asks, what if the inside of your pantry was edited by Dieline? 

Sandwiched between Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and SoHo neighborhoods, Pop Up Grocer sells everything from instant coffee to laundry pods, but not your grandma’s version of either. The interior feels like a nostalgic corner store brought into the present day, exaggerated to an almost cartoonish level. It’s not pretending to be anything other than what it is: a novelty store where you can see new brands in the wild. 

While it’s “playland for packaging nerds,” it happens to be playland for naming nerds too. Some favorites on a recent visit were Bask (a suncare brand), Hormbles Chormbles (by our friends at Day Job), Potluck (Korean pantry staples), and Sleep or Die (a wellness brand). Consumer packaged goods, or CPG brands, are some of our favorites to name because they’re tangible products that are integrated into daily life—from the shelf to the pantry—and may even be elevated to household name.

Shoppers face a multitude of choices, so new brands in this space are up against longtime giants and even generational brand loyalty. There’s a need to differentiate (inside and out), bring something new to the table, and hopefully earn an invite into the home. 

A quick comparison: let’s look at Bask, the suncare brand launched in 2020, and Coppertone, a staple of beach totes since the ‘50s. While Coppertone’s brand design has evolved over the years, it relies on a familiar icon (the Copperstone Girl) and of course its name to carry hard-earned brand equity into the future. Bask, by contrast, feels unmistakably present, with a blob-like font that might’ve given other execs pause (“Can anyone read that?”).

Both names celebrate the in-the-sun part of suncare, but Bask captures a mood that permeates the whole brand—not an easy feat with four letters. It makes sun protection fun and a bit luxurious, when it could otherwise feel like homework. Kudos to RoAndCo, the team behind the brand.

Figuring out how to stand out against familiar brands is half the fun, and only half the battle.

At a time when people are increasingly discovering new products via social media, the idea of standing out on a shelf is replaced by standing out against every piece of content imaginable. This is why Pop Up Grocer is a visual feast—beacause each of those brands was made to cut through the noise. It may also be why so many of them use nostalgic elements like retro typography, hand-drawn illustrations, and playful color palettes, which can feel like a welcome form of escapism during a doom scroll. 

More than a novelty store, Pop Up Grocer is a rare snapshot of the state of CPG branding and maybe even a reflection of how certain groups value design in their everyday lives (there’s enough going on in this world…why can’t your toothpaste be a little more fabulous?). Seeing all these brands at once, without any of their competitors in sight, makes it seem like this could be the new standard—where we expect a lot more from brands beyond simply delivering a good product.

Maybe we want the same dopamine hit when we open our fridge as when we’re online. And maybe we’re more drawn to the brands we’ve already seen online, like spotting a celebrity in the flesh.

While Pop Up Grocer could feel like a glimpse into the future of retail, it’s more of an alternate universe. Luckily, in our reality we need the old faithfuls: the familiar brands and dependable staples, many of which are iconic in their own right (our team recently wrote a piece about these unsung heroes). More importantly, our wallets need them too. It’s easy to love the idea of Australian Sandalwood laundry pods more so than the price point. 

Still, there’s no doubt we’ll keep seeing more “buzzworthy” brands popping up around us IRL. At the very least, we can finally try that one non-alcoholic beverage we keep getting ads for and decide if it’s as dreamy as it looks. Cheers. 🥂