Robbie Thain
Founder, CEO
AI-generated illustrative image. Not an official campaign image.
Tower 28 kept beauty products off sale at the Sensitive Club. Makai examines the implications for staffing, space and the path from trial to purchase.
On October 16, 2026, Marketing Brew reported that beauty brand Tower 28 had opened its first standalone physical pop-up: the Sensitive Club. The Venice activation offered hands-on product experiences in a community-oriented setting without selling the brand’s beauty products onsite.
The format was not entirely sales-free. Limited-edition merchandise was available for purchase. That distinction matters for CPG and beverage leaders evaluating whether an activation should generate immediate purchases or serve a different purpose.
According to Marketing Brew and WWD, the Sensitive Club combined product services with opportunities for community engagement. WWD identified Sephora as a partner in the Venice, California activation.
The reported offer was specific:
This was a change in what the physical space was expected to accomplish. Beauty products remained part of the experience without becoming the onsite transaction.
Founder and CEO Amy Liu told Marketing Brew that the goal was to engage existing and new fans while giving community members a place to meet one another. WWD also reported that Liu framed the absence of beauty-product sales as a way to engage more people. Liu said the activation was not designed to make money and that she expected it might not be profitable.
Marketing Brew reported nearly 2,000 visitors. The coverage provides no public measurement framework or downstream commercial results. Attendance does not establish incremental sales, repeat purchase or Return on Investment (ROI).
That is the evidence boundary. The useful planning lesson is to define the space’s primary job before deciding what success should look like.
Our view is straightforward: welcome people warmly and be disciplined about the assignment. A community experience does not need to behave like a checkout lane. It does need a purpose that the creative concept and operating plan both support.
For CPG and beverage brands, removing an immediate product purchase changes the brief. Product trial might become the main objective. A qualified conversation or a later retail purchase might become the intended next step. Those outcomes should not be treated as interchangeable.
Makai’s retail demonstrations use trained brand ambassadors to drive in-store sales through conversations and product trials. Our trade show work focuses on attracting attention and turning visitor conversations into customers. Those services give us a practical reason to distinguish a welcoming encounter from a commercially useful handoff.
We would not treat Tower 28’s decision as a template for every launch. We see it as a reason to choose deliberately between community engagement and immediate sell-through. A format built for one job should not receive credit for another without the corresponding evidence.
For a brand prioritizing retail sales, that means designing a clear path from product trial to purchase. For a community-led brief, it means naming the intended relationship outcome rather than borrowing a sales objective that the experience does not support.
Aloha belongs in the welcome. Discipline belongs in the definition of success.
The Sensitive Club’s reported services put attention on what visitors could do. For a future CPG brief, our operational reading is that removing a product checkout does not automatically remove work from the staffing plan. Product explanation and hands-on trial still need a defined role.
Makai’s retail demonstration model starts with trained ambassadors and real conversations. Applied to a service-led brief, that positioning supports planning around the interaction rather than simply the number of people entering the space.
We would distinguish these responsibilities in the brief:
These are planning questions, not a reconstruction of Tower 28’s staffing arrangements. Their purpose is to make the work visible before assigning people to it.
For beverage and food teams, a useful distinction is between distributing a sample and supporting a product conversation. Makai’s retail demonstrations are built around the latter as well as the trial itself. If that conversation is part of the brief, the staffing plan should recognize it as part of the assignment.
The same logic applies to event reporting. An attendance count describes entry into the experience. A service interaction describes participation. A completed purchase or qualified lead describes a different outcome and deserves a separate label.
Tower 28’s offer included beauty-product services and merchandise purchases. For teams adapting the concept, that combination raises a practical design choice: give each activity a clear place in the experience rather than treating every visitor as a shopper headed toward the same transaction.
Our view is that the floor plan should express the activation’s priority. A product-trial brief should give participation a clear role. A sales brief should make the purchase route legible. A community brief should not quietly become a retail brief simply because merchandise is present.
That is why planning space around product participation deserves attention before the visual treatment is finalized. The design review should address what visitors are there to do and where that activity leads.
Makai plans and manages trade show spaces that attract attention and start conversations with the aim of converting visitors into customers. From that perspective, a footprint is more than a place to display the brand. It is a decision about which interactions receive room and which handoffs remain visible.
For a service-led activation, we would review the participation area and the commercial handoff as related but distinct parts of the plan. Merchandise purchases should not stand in for evidence that the core product experience achieved its intended outcome.
The practical standard is clarity. The experience can be open and welcoming without leaving its commercial role undefined.
For future programs, we would define the next step before treating a no-product-sales format as the answer. If the objective is community engagement, the reporting should describe participation in that experience. If the objective is retail sales or qualified pipeline, the plan should include the corresponding purchase or follow-up pathway.
Our team connects physical experiences with QR codes and mobile technology across retail, event and tour activations. In this context, we see that connected layer as a way to make the next step explicit. The technology is a supporting capability rather than a substitute for deciding what the interaction should accomplish.
For a sales-oriented brief, the handoff might connect trial with a purchase opportunity. For a lead-oriented brief, it should connect the conversation with the intended follow-up. These are planning options grounded in Makai’s retail and experiential services, not reported features of the Sensitive Club.
The reporting plan should preserve those distinctions. Participation belongs in one category. Purchase behavior and qualified prospects belong in their own categories. Our perspective on separating activity from commercial impact applies whether the activation includes a register or not.
This also gives the approval conversation a more useful focus. Rather than debating whether community or conversion matters more in the abstract, the team can assess whether the proposed format serves the stated objective. The creative idea then has an operational assignment instead of an open-ended expectation to deliver everything.
Tower 28’s reported choice is worth discussing because it makes that assignment visible: beauty-product engagement without onsite beauty-product sales. For Makai, the lesson is to be equally explicit about what the next activation is built to deliver.
As a CMO or VP of Marketing, will you ask your team today to mark the intended purchase or qualified-lead handoff on your next activation’s floor plan before approving the footprint?
Deciding to place product trial inside a purchase setting moves the brief into retail demonstrations, an area Makai delivers for food and beverage brands. Trained brand ambassadors discuss products with shoppers and conduct trials with the goal of driving in-store sales.
30 Years Experiential & Retail Activation Partner for CPG & Beverage Brands | Multi-Market Demos, Roadshows & Costco/Club Programs That Actually Sell
