The long line of young women curled around the corner from the iconic Casa Magazines store on 8th Avenue in New York City and stretched along West 12th Street. They were there to eat popsicles in the warm sunshine, pick up gift bags from the high-end fashion brand Miu Miu and accept free copies of books Miu Miu selected as “Summer Reads.”
The books were not an afterthought. They represented substantive literary contributions to the empowerment of women, like “A Woman” by Sibilla Aleramo, regarded as Italy’s first feminist novel. Nor was the event a one-off. Miu Miu was staging similar events in Milan, Paris, London, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
This was a grand-scale brand activation and we were there to meet Anna Paterlini, co-founder and client director at NEWU, the phygital agency that partnered with Miu Miu to make this happen.
The term “phygital” may not be …