It actually all began that we wanted to create an outside space that guests could enjoy throughout Summer and Winter.
Coppa Club Tower Bridge opened in May 2016 and the terrace was in full every single day throughout the Summer, then as soon as it got colder we immediately saw our numbers dropping.
The problem is that due to our location being next to the tower of London, we are very limited with what we can do to cover the terrace. A fixed pergola/awning structure is not an option, as this would block the view to the tower. So we had to come up with a solution that would be temporary, would not block the view and have the ability to be installed very quickly to avoid any additional loss of traffic and revenue. Would also mention here that we still wanted our guests to still be able to enjoy views of The Shard and Tower Bridge.
That’s when then the idea of the igloos was born. They are off-the-shelf products from Germany that could be delivered within a week. The rest was quite easy for me to design. I grew up in a ski resort and just brought the charm of the alps to the river Thames in London! People got very attached to them and so were we.
The igloos were announced in the Evening Standard on a Monday evening, by the Tuesday morning we already had 5,000 emails with booking requests in our inbox, on Wednesday that number was 20,000!. No one expected that we had to hire 10 office angels to take care of the bookings. As soon as we were able to answer all these emails, we realised we could not even come close to meeting the demand.
In a nutshell:
PRE-LAUNCH
25k sign ups to the newsletter through partnership and social media competition with Secret LDN
DAY ONE
Demand was so high that the website crashed within 10 minutes
•14.5k cover bookings in the igloos
•28.4K opening rate on newsletter - 50% (21.71% industry average)
•18k click through on newsletter – 63% (1.33% industry average)
Website Page Views www.coppaclub.co.uk
•Day one total - 112k (daily average 10k)
•Day one by hour – 15k (hourly average 500)
Social Stats
•2k+ new Instagram followers in past 7 days
•1k Instagram likes on the igloo announcement
•32K reach on Facebook post
•12.9k impressions on announcement tweet
featured in:
https://archpaper.com/2016/11/london-pop-igloos-thames-riverbank/
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/at-londons-coppa-club-dine-in-an-igloo-along-the-thames-this-winter
https://www.timeout.com/london/blog/rejoice-those-igloos-by-the-thames-are-coming-back-101217
https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/restaurants/coppa-clubs-riverside-igloos-return-to-tower-bridge-a3660036.html
http://uk.businessinsider.com/coppa-club-tower-bridge-festive-igloos-by-the-thames-winter-season-2017-10
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2017/nov/19/are-pop-up-igloos-the-new-christmas-markets
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/best-winter-pop-ups-in-london-from-cosy-igloos-to-rooftop-ice-risks_uk_5a05cc4ce4b05673aa58fd95
https://thenudge.com/london-things-to-do/winter-pop-ups/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-42012732
https://sheerluxe.com/2018/05/15/summer-pop-ups-you-need-know-about
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/finland/articles/this-arctic-igloo-resort-is-winter-honeymoon-goals/
https://metro.co.uk/2017/10/27/all-the-cosy-igloos-you-can-visit-in-london-7029729/
https://www.ad-magazin.de