How New York or Nowhere has grown its brand without any paid ads

New York or Nowhere CEO Quincy Moore and Business Insider's Nathan McAlone. Carl Timpone / BFA The apparel brand New York or Nowhere is everywhere in the city, but its ads are nowhere to be found.The company grew into a recognized brand without any paid media, its CEO Quincy Moore said, speaking at Business Insider's The Long Play conference.The retailer launched in 2020 as a digital brand and opened its flagship store in 2022. NYON has grown awareness through a mix of word-of-mouth, its own social accounts, collaborations with household names like the New York Knicks and Sesame Street, and social posts from visitors to its shop on Lafayette Street in New York's Nolita."Our store has been really the most effective customer acquisition channel," Moore told Business Insider's media and advertising editor Nathan McAlone. "We've been able to scale to this point without having to invest in paid."In-person experiences that drive views on social media have become a key marketing strategy among brands. Fifty-three percent of marketers told influencer firm Linqia that they planned to work with creators on events this year, up from 34% in 2025.Some brands are setting up pop-ups at influencer watering-hole events like Coachella, while others are doing one-off promotions in more surprising spots, like when Snapple hosted a comedy night with Colin Jost and Pete Davidson on a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry.For retail stores with shareworthy interiors, the marketing opportunity is right there waiting to be shared."People like going and doing stuff in the real world," Moore said. "The product is part of the experience."While Moore said he does expect NYON to incorporate paid media into its strategy in the future, the company also plans to double down on its brick-and-mortar presence. It's opening a store in New York's Rockefeller Center, and would consider setting up shop overseas in a city like Tokyo, Seoul, or Shanghai, rather than in other US cities. "New York itself is one of the strongest brands on earth, but it plays differently internationally than it does domestically," Moore said. "I'm not going to go to Miami and open a New York or Nowhere store; that would be a silly path forward."The company is also open to spreading its "or Nowhere" concept into other cities that have a lot of pride, like Detroit or Austin."I don't know if we'll ever be able to replicate what we've done here, and I don't know that we'll ever really try in earnest," Moore said. "That may be sort of the carrot that gets dangled at somebody that acquires us someday." Dan is a correspondent at Business Insider covering TikTok, YouTube, and the business of social media.He writes about how creators earn a living from social apps, the inner workings of companies like TikTok, and the many ways that social media is impacting Hollywood and other industries like e-commerce, sports, music, and news.He previously wrote about marketing and entrepreneurship at Ad Age and Inc. Magazine. He was a McGraw Scholar in business journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and a graduate of Middlebury College. Disclosure: Dan previously worked at the ad tech company, The Trade Desk, where he was granted stock as part of his compensation. The Long Play