Now here’s a neat idea to stir the cre­ative juices of art direc­tors and account man­agers alike: use the office as a gallery and a pop-up store to show­case your agency’s cam­paigns. To be truth­ful, anoth­er agency got there first: meet Van’s Gen­er­al Store, which was launched by adver­tis­ing vet­er­an Scott Carl­son and “Ray Dono­van” star Liev Schreiber in Novem­ber last year and is housed in a store­front on the Low­er East Side of Manhattan.

Dou­ble identity

The store­front set­ting dou­bles as a gallery and a “store” for the agency (hence the “Gen­er­al Store” moniker – the “Van” bit is named for Mr. Carlson’s grand­fa­ther and also his son, both of whom share the name). Dur­ing the agency’s cam­paign for the Ner­gia ener­gy drink, the store show­cased six sports bicy­cles and a surf­board, all bear­ing the Ner­gia logo which Van’s had designed. Passers-by often mis­took the agency for a bike shop and popped in to take a clos­er look, where­upon they received free sam­ples of the drink.

Right now, it’s fea­tur­ing a Ves­pa scoot­er sur­round­ed by a gallery dis­play fea­tur­ing the fruits of the agency’s artis­tic tal­ent, like dis­plays of the scooter’s rearview mir­ror mount­ed to the walls, with their reflec­tive screens cov­ered in pho­tos of street scenes. Most art direc­tors and account man­agers would agree that it’s a clever way of high­light­ing an agency’s cre­ative caliber.

Mr. Carl­son (who was for­mer­ly cre­ative direc­tor at top agen­cies like Moth­er and Love Col­lec­tive) told the New York Times:

“The foot traf­fic down here is great, espe­cial­ly on the week­ends, so we’re able to edu­cate peo­ple about brands. Look at how much adver­tis­ers spend for a bill­board that peo­ple dri­ve by, as opposed to pay­ing almost noth­ing to have a store­front where peo­ple walk in and become part of the brand.”

A grow­ing roster

The mul­ti-tal­ent­ed Mr. Schreiber, who directs and writes as well as acts, dou­bled as a copy­writer for the agency’s video work on the Ner­gia brand, but he insists he’s not there as celebri­ty pitch­man. He’ll be work­ing “back-stage” where he’ll be tap­ping his celebri­ty con­nec­tions to help with web series and commercials.

So far, as well as the Ner­gia brand and Ves­pa, the agency has worked on pro­mo­tion­al pro­gram­ming for inter­net and cable provider Opti­mum and has shot four music videos for Bon Jovi.