Revitalize S.Craig St.
This is a brand and product management project that proposes a plan for revitalizing the South Craig Street(S.Craig St.) at Oakland, Pittsburgh. The proposal consists of overall strategies, plan for events, design for digital space and marketing strategies based on research.
My Contributions
I conducted 8 intercept interviews with passerby on S.Craig St and analyzed the interview data to contribute to the insight and strategy development. Then, I was responsible for the tactics in digital space - designing websites and developing digital marketing strategies.
Outcomes
The client was very happy with the proposal and thought many of them was feasible and had huge potential to reconnect the community around S.Craig St. and bring back more customers.
Context
Before the pandemic, South Craig Street(S.Craig St.) used to be a destination for lunch and after-work for locals and students in the area. There was a bi-weekly meeting between the Oakland Business Improvement District and representatives from each shop. However, after the pandemic, the bi-weekly meeting discontinued and the traffic to S.Craig St. was greatly reduced. A group of shop owners collaborated to promote S.Craig St. as a whole to increase their traffic but did not see much improvement. The Caliban Bookshop manager Karen Lilliis was one of the members, and she hoped we could propose some ways that could revitalize S.Craig St. within their scope of resources.
57 Survey Responses & 13 Interviews: People Wanted More Excitement on The Street
With the objective of increasing the engagement of people coming to the street regularly with more stores as well as bringing back customers from further distance, we analyzed the surrounding area up to 1km with S.Craig St. as the center. We then identified students, workers, residents and business owners in the area as the major target customers. We then distributed survey on Nextdoor with location as “South Craig Street” as well as to the offices, stores, classrooms and museums around the area.
Through our primary research via survey and interviews, we found that while there were a variety of pain points and needs from business owners and visitors, they both looked for more excitement on the street. Business owners wanted more exposure of their stores, and visitors wanted the street to be a more exciting and connected community and be more informed if there were events on the street. At the same time, they would be more motivated to come to the street if there were events. Therefore, the overlapping area of “more exposure and excitement” was where we were going to work on.
Strategies
1.Increase Exposure
Exposure is important for attracting more customers and increasing the sale. Customers are more likely to buy familiar brands or purchase in the stores they are familiar with. Currently, there is a lack of exposure of many of the stores on the street - even regular visitors are not familiar with some stores. Increasing exposure to target customers will help bring more people to the street and improve the sale.
2.More Collaboration
Collaboration is a great way to reach out to a wider group of customers. The street is between two big universities - Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh - and right across the street there is Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History which has visitors from all over Pittsburgh and even from outside of Pittsburgh. Collaborating with university clubs and museum programs can drive more traffic to S.Craig St.
3.Optimize Online Presence
Presence on online space is effective at reaching wider audience. Currently, there is almost no or minimal online presence of either the businesses or the street in totality. Increasing online presence through optimizing SEO, marketing through social media and so on can attract customers from farther distance to come to the street.
4.Improve Store Visibility
A storefront visibility is essential, especially for events. A clean and easily navigable storefront is more likely to draw more customers into the store. However, some of the stores, for example, the Irish Design Center, Whats Good Thrift Shop, while being at corners, do not install visible signages or attractive storefronts. Working on the visibility of the stores on the street can make them more attractive to passerby.
5.Maintain Consistency
Once the events and digital presence is launched, keeping social media posts and events consistent is essential to building anticipation for upcoming events and social media posts.
Website Redesign: A More Connected Digital Space
Current Website
Currently, there is only a link tree that contains the links to all the businesses on S.Craig St. on the website. Visitors do not know what are the businesses for until they click on the link and get redirected to the websites set up by the businesses themselves. This deters visitors from learning about the businesses quickly and finding the stores they are interested in and visit the stores in person.
Moreover, the combination of the green and pink colors is not aesthetically pleasant. The overall design of the website does not showcase the vibe of the street and does not create a space for a community either.
Benchmark: 5th Ave of Eugene, Oregon
Similar to S.Craig St., the 5th Avenue of Eugene, Oregon is also a hub of a variety of eat places, shops as well as places for stay, live and work. They have a very well-designed website serving as the shared space that introduces all the businesses in the community. It was thus used as a benchmark for our website design.
Something they do very well is that they do not just put links on the website. Instead, they have photos that showcase the businesses. When clicking into a photo, there is a short introduction about the business. The businesses are also smartly categorized and the main navigation bar provides intuitive and direct entrances to each category of the businesses, which allows it easy for visitors to immediately find the businesses they want to learn more about. Such space can allow the community to be marketed to a wider audience.
Redesign: A More Intriguing Landing Page
Redesign: Displaying Upcoming Events to Drive Traffic
Since events on the street is the key of attracting more visitors, it is at the top priority and will be the first section the website visitors will see once they click “explore” at the landing page.
Redesign: Portal for Easy Discovery of Your Favorite Business
Instead of having photos of the interior or the products of the businesses as what is done by the 5th Ave of Eugene, I decided to show photos of the exterior. In this way, when visitors go to the street in person, they will be able to immediately identify the stores they find interesting on the website.
Moreover, to allow visitors to learn about the businesses more easily and quickly, when hovering on the photo, a short introduction about the businesses will appear so that visitors do not have to click through the link to have an idea about the businesses. If they want to learn more, they can then choose to click on the brick to get directed to the website of the business.
Because hover effect does not work on mobile, for the mobile version, I designed the “Our Members” part to be a horizontal scrolling section with the introduction about the businesses directly below the photos.
Realization
In fall 2023, we were happy to see that the revitalization of Craig St has become one of the initiatives of Pittsburgh Innovation District and many of our design proposal were implemented.
