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Creating a There, There: A guide to marketing and activating the urban space
What suddenly transformed Uptown in Oakland from being a dead place to having 34 restaurants, live theatre, galleries and bars? What caused a shift in the scene? What makes an urban center a center of activity? How do we consistently attract enough people to sustain the businesses and bring in more people?
The following is a basic road map to creating and shaping a thriving urban space and give reasons to be in the urban center.
Overview of marketing and branding “place”
Shaping the brand and image of your space – creating a place
The reason to come to a place is the story you create. Creating a name, using the history to create a reason to be there starts attracting people to places.
Creating Activation – who are we attracting? How does it shape the brand?
Activation is all about creating a reason to come to the area, events that occur occasionally can turn into a permanent and begin to attract more and people there. Events and activation around food trucks or art start shaping the image of the place and the brand
What’s the story? – what you create for the past and present makes it real
Both past history and new events and places shape conversations and stories about what’s happening and the reason to come. This creates powerful messages that can be driven by social media to attract more people.
Social Media and getting out the message – people do things because of people.
Using a well crafted social media campaign can leverage the reasons to be in downtown. The local merchants, restaurants and galleries connect and leverage more connections from different people and they all end up showing up.
The five keys to attraction to urban spaces
Experiences – things happening that make people come. Fundamentally the key to getting people to places is having a reason to go, to get people to a place. This is what the arts world is so important. it’s about having a specific reason to go that can not be duplicated or repeated. A small theatrical production, a gallery show. They all represent something that you can’t just watch on TV or see is
Hangouts – where people just show up to be, the local coffee house, even a Starbucks brings dozens of separate individuals together who do not communicate or talk. They just hangout. They do work, they have meetings with others, they bring a center to a place that may have had nothing going on. You can extend this to the small tap rooms that are opening that serve beer. They aren’t big, full service brewpubs with a restaurant, just a small place to hangout. These little niche places serve a very specific place. They show people, that people are their and for no particular reason.
Eats – that quick taco, the wrap or sandwich to go. Often this starts with food trucks tied to an art event or gathering that gets people out and when things become more permanent that tiny to-go shop and then the restaurant. They frequently cluster together and near hangouts and connections. Once you have food and an art show you have enough to get people to come and come again.
Connections – this is about how and why people get there. Transit and locations are critical to getting people to a place. This is what fuels hangouts. Having connections, gets you to the next place and can bring folks to you.
Gatherings – this is about creating something, events, reasons to be in a place. When you make an event happen all the other pieces come to life and get people to see whats there. They support eats and hangouts and experience places like galleries.
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