Taking Brand Culture Off the Screen and Onto Campus: Inside Pop Collective

By: Natasha Magrefte

Meet Pop Collective, the student-founded agency turning the brand experiences Gen Z sees online into real-life moments on college campuses.

Last December, while their friends were heading out for the night in Madison, Ryan Brooks and Liv Eisenberg were still inside a storefront assembling racks and putting the finishing touches on their holiday pop-up.

As friends passed by the window and waved on their way out, Ryan and Liv kept setting up. For them, missing a night out hardly felt like a sacrifice when they were watching something they had built come to life.

It’s a fitting snapshot of what building Pop Collective has looked like behind the scenes: equal parts creativity, ambition, and doing whatever it takes to turn an idea into something real.

What started as a concept shared by two college best friends has grown into a pop-up activation agency bringing fashion, beauty, and big-city brand experiences directly to college campuses, from Wisconsin-Madison to USC and Indiana.

From LA and New York to Madison

For Ryan and Liv, the idea behind Pop Collective came partly from realizing just how different college felt from home.

Ryan grew up in Los Angeles and Liv in New York, two cities where fashion, shopping, and brand experiences are never too far away. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they found something very different. Students were still style-conscious and tuned into the same brands they were seeing online, but the opportunity to experience them in person wasn’t nearly as available.

An earlier summer working at Alice + Olivia helped plant the seed, when the possibility of bringing a trunk show to Wisconsin came up. The concept stuck.

Ryan and Liv had already talked about wanting to build something together, but they weren’t interested in starting a brand just for the sake of having one. Instead, they began thinking about what was already missing around them.

What if, rather than waiting for students to go elsewhere for those experiences, they could bring the brands directly to campus?

The trunk show idea quickly became something bigger. Ryan and Liv began reaching out to brands about creating full pop-up experiences where students could shop the names they already followed and discover something new in person.

The response came fast. About a month after the concept first took shape, they held their first Pop Collective event. Just like that, Pop Collective had gone from something they were imagining to something students could actually show up to.

Best Friends to Business Partners

Pop Collective may have started with a gap in the college market, but the partnership behind it started much more personally.

Ryan and Liv met through Kappa Kappa Gamma at Wisconsin on bid night. They hadn’t known each other before college, but with overlapping circles and many of the same interests, their friendship quickly grew.

Fashion was one of those shared interests, but so was the ambition to eventually create something of their own. By the time Pop Collective came along, building it together felt natural.

That friendship still shapes the way they work. Rather than splitting the company into rigid roles, they tend to approach most of it as a team, bringing shared creative instincts to everything from staying on top of what’s happening in fashion and social media to understanding which brands and experiences will resonate with students. And since they’re students themselves, thinking from that perspective comes naturally.

For Ryan and Liv, being best friends is part of what makes building the company feel exciting in the first place.

Behind the Pop-Up

By the time someone walks into a Pop Collective event, everything is meant to feel effortless. Getting it there is another story.

A single activation can involve months of planning and dozens of moving pieces, from inventory, graphics and catering to furniture, flowers, storage, and the racks themselves. Ryan and Liv coordinate with brands, vendors, and partners while also handling much of the execution and physical setup.

And almost every detail depends on someone else delivering their part at the right time. A PR contact needs to respond. A cart needs to arrive. Furniture has to be delivered. Inventory has to be ready. Something as seemingly simple as putting up curtains can turn into hours of work.

Every pop-up teaches them more about coordinating brands, managing timelines, solving problems, and anticipating the small details that only become obvious once you’ve actually done it. Once the doors open, though, all of that work is supposed to disappear. Students should simply feel like something exciting has arrived on campus.

The Pop-Up That Changed Everything

The first few Pop Collective events showed Ryan and Liv that the concept worked. Then came Guizio.

For their Danielle Guizio pop-up in Madison, nearly 900 people RSVP’d. There was a line down the block, security at the door, and a packed space throughout the day. Students even traveled in from Chicago and Milwaukee to be there. 

A collaborative social post for the event reached almost a million views, while the turnout showed them something equally important in person: students weren’t showing up only because they wanted to buy a shirt. They wanted to be part of the event.

The experience extended beyond the storefront, too. Danielle Guizio herself joined students at a Friday-night launch event, making the activation feel like a full brand moment built around the campus community.

The decor, marketing, and overall production all played a part. For Ryan and Liv, Guizio was the moment the scale of what they were building became impossible to ignore.

More Than Shopping

That focus on creating a full experience now shapes the way Pop Collective approaches its activations.

At its USC event, Campbell & Kramer and Pissed n Broke Vintage were joined by beauty, fragrance, matcha, and coffee, while other activations have included brands like Alo, Kosas, Tower 28, Saint James Iced Tea, and Popup Bagels. 

Those details help turn shopping into something more memorable. A beauty product, a drink, or another piece of gifting can make attendees feel like they got to be part of something special rather than simply walking into a temporary store.

That matters in a generation where so much brand discovery happens through a screen. College students can follow the same fashion and beauty brands, trends, and events unfolding in New York or Los Angeles, but many of those experiences remain geographically out of reach or limited to influencers, industry insiders, and invited guests. Pop Collective gives students a way to step into that world themselves.

There’s also something special about shopping in person: touching the clothes, trying things on and making a day of it with friends, especially around formals, game days, and trips.

For the students showing up, the appeal isn’t always just What can I buy? Sometimes, it’s the event itself. Pop Collective isn’t introducing students to a culture they know nothing about. It’s bringing the culture they already follow online into real life.

What’s Next for Pop Collective?

Taking Pop Collective beyond Wisconsin was always part of Ryan and Liv’s vision. Now that it’s happening, they’re thinking about how to keep building from there.

Students at other universities have already reached out wanting to get involved, and the founders see potential in creating a broader campus network while continuing to build longer-term relationships with the brands they work with.

Ryan and Liv are excited to see where Pop Collective takes them post-grad and feel lucky to be building something they truly love while getting to do it together.

What Ryan and Liv first noticed in Madison was never a lack of interest. College students were already following the brands, watching the events, and wanting to be part of them.

The missing piece was access.

And that is exactly what Pop Collective is bringing to campus.