Client

BIKINI BERLIN
www.bikiniberlin.de

Project Date

July – December 2025
(Event dates: 14th / 15th November 2025)

Services

Event strategy & production, PR & influencer relations

+8%

mall visitors on event Saturday (vs. average Saturday)

27

Clippings

The brief

In the summer of 2025, iconic BIKINI BERLIN approached us with a clear ambition: to move beyond traditional retail and further establish the Concept Shopping Mall as an urban space for culture and inspiration.

The goal was to create a high-quality public event that would attract new audiences, activate existing communities, and generate meaningful media attention, while remaining fully embedded in the center’s commercial ecosystem. 

Our mission: to develop, produce, and communicate an event that would emotionally recharge the BIKINI BERLIN brand and turn the center into a place people come to stay—and shop.

The campaign

Our strategic answer was the Reading Retreat—a counterpoint to the city’s constant noise and pace. We chose the timing deliberately around the Nationwide Reading Day (Bundesweiter Vorlesetag) and Berlin Fairytale Month (Berliner Märchenmonat), providing strong cultural relevance and editorial hooks. For this autumn weekend, BIKINI BERLIN transformed into a cozy, story-filled living room in the middle of Berlin’s urban jungle. The mall became a space for slowing down, listening, reading, and connecting.

The program combined:

• curated readings with bestselling and culturally relevant authors
• reading lounges featuring a curated selection of classics and trending titles from popular genres like New Adult, Romantasy, and Dark Academia—made possible through sponsorships we organized with two leading publishing houses
• creative writing workshops for BIKINI BERLIN Society Members
• a family program with fairy-tale elements, reading corners and craft activities

The event was designed as a holistic brand experience: culturally relevant, visually strong, emotionally resonant, and accessible to a broad audience—from families and literature lovers to young urban creatives.

We coordinated a network of over 15 partners including publishers, creators, and on-site service providers, while managing the event within an active retail environment.

Strategic pillars

The format was designed around three core drivers of impact: cultural timing, low-threshold participation, and built-in content generation.

• Brand repositioning
  From shopping destination to experiential cultural space

• Public event as media trigger
  Creating a format with inherent editorial relevance

• Community building
  Bringing together literature fans, creators, and families for a real-life experience that turned a shared passion into a deep human connection

• Tenant integration
  Increasing visibility and footfall for selected shops and partners

• Membership activation
  Offering exclusive experiences for BIKINI BERLIN Society Members

Media attention was generated through the event itself and amplified via professional photo and video documentation, which was subsequently pitched to local lifestyle, culture, and city media.

Scope

Laika led the project end-to-end, covering strategy, production, partnerships, and communications. Key responsibilities included:

• Overall project management and event concept development

• Experience and spatial concept development for event areas, including mood direction, site walkthroughs, and coordination of furnishing

• Full program curation and scheduling across two event days

• Acquisition and management of all partners (authors, moderators, workshop facilitators, family program, publishers, retailers)

• Support in securing catering partners

• Copywriting support for website, newsletter, social media, signage, and print materials

• Development of interactive formats (e.g. event gamification and scavenger hunt)

• Press relations and media support on-site

• Stakeholder coordination on-site

• Support of execution, including setup supervision

During the event, we managed on-site operations from coordinating service providers and supporting talent to handling media representatives and overseeing the overall visitor experience.

Program & experience design

At the heart of the event were three headline readings, each accompanied by Q&A sessions and meet-and-greet opportunities. All featured female authors with strong resonance among younger audiences, particularly within the fast-growing New Adult segment shaped by platforms such as BookTok and Bookstagram.

Friday’s headliner, bestselling author Melanie Raabe, engaged audiences with excerpts from her latest publication, a non-fiction work exploring mindfulness and everyday creativity. The program also featured creators-turned-authors Josi Wismar and Doris R. Thomas, effectively bridging digital fandom and physical experience.

All featured titles were available for purchase on-site through a partnership with the local bookstore Timbooktu, with signing sessions following each reading creating direct interaction between authors and audiences while driving retail integration.

Complementing the stage program, a curated Reading Lounge—developed with Ravensburger, dtv Verlag, and Bookbot—invited visitors to browse and engage with both classic and contemporary titles.

A standout activation was Bookbot’s “blind date with a book” concept: wrapped books accompanied by short teaser notes. The format proved highly effective: Visitors actively engaged, shared their picks on social media, and tagged both BIKINI BERLIN and Bookbot, generating organic reach beyond the event itself.

To deepen engagement, we introduced several interactive touchpoints: A gamified event flyer in the form of a “Reading Retreat Tic-Tac-Toe” encouraged visitors to explore different parts of the program, while a scavenger hunt, with 50 wrapped BIKINI BERLIN coffee table books as prizes, further increased participation and dwell time. A dedicated photo moment—a cozy reading setup integrated into the space— encouraged visitors to take and share photos, supporting organic reach.

Creative writing workshops in collaboration with Schreibhain Berlin were offered exclusively to BIKINI BERLIN Society members, while allowing on-site sign-ups ensured accessibility and contributed to membership growth.

On Saturday, a dedicated family program with Kunterbunt Berlin expanded the audience further. Activities included face painting, seasonal crafts, cozy reading tents, and a live storytelling session by a professional fairytale narrator, creating a multi-generational experience aligned with the broader thematic context of Berlin Fairytale Month.

The results

The Reading Retreat showed how the right cultural format can do what matters most for a retail space: bring people in. By tapping into relevant cultural moments and working with authors and creators who already have strong, engaged audiences, the event generated attention beyond BIKINI BERLIN’s existing visitors. 

Coverage in key Berlin lifestyle and city media was further amplified through organic social media reach—especially on Instagram and TikTok—driven by the participating authors and their communities.

This visibility translated directly into increased footfall. The event Saturday was one of the strongest visitor days at BIKINI BERLIN in 2025, with +8% compared to an average Saturday.

Once people were there, the format encouraged them to stay and explore. The mix of readings, lounges, workshops, and family activities created multiple entry points into the experience. Visitors moved through the space, spent more time on-site, and engaged with nearby stores, especially in gastronomy and concept retail.

The event was also designed with content in mind from the start. Visual moments, interactive formats, and creator involvement led to continued visibility beyond the event weekend, extending its reach and impact.

Overall, the Reading Retreat showed that cultural programming can work within a commercial environment—bringing in new audiences, strengthening positioning, and activating the space in a meaningful way.