How to systematically design online and offline brand activities?

Different from daily operational activities, offline brand activities are more of a marketing activity aimed at increasing product exposure and enhancing brand familiarity. So, how to carry out systematic activity design?

01 Project Background

Cool+Creation Camp was jointly founded by Coolhome and Sina Home Furnishing. It aims to discover Chinese interior designers with great potential. From the guidance and teaching of design masters to the continuous incubation and training of Coolhome University, it aims to create a growth activity platform that accelerates the growth process of Chinese interior designers and helps the growth of young designers.

For the design team, as a B-side enterprise, this type of demand also came into being for the first time. The main topic of this sharing session was how to help the demand side to promote the implementation of various activities throughout the entire chain without similar experience.

02 Project Timeline

As an event that spans a year and involves various offline and online media carriers, the early stage planning of the project is particularly important for the promotion and rhythm control of the entire project. We divide the project into three stages: conception and tone setting, warm-up, and formal competition + offline activities.

03 Conception Stage

For the creative designers of Kujula, in addition to visual expression, the planning and conception of a large-scale event is also a necessary ability. The design team first calibrates the design goals and then extracts design keywords from a large amount of demand information and then expands them to the next step.

1. Keyword Brainstorming

2. Target calibration

• Activity goals: Introduce big names and cultivate new design stars, achieve content upgrades, expand user interaction and participation (attractiveness), and enhance content sharing and dissemination (quality)
• Key design results: mental influence, brand influence
• Alignment goals: 1. Establish the direction of reshaping the designer brand mindset; 2. Clarify the word-of-mouth content that the "Cool + Creation Camp" project is expected to achieve.

3. Strategic planning

• Registration stage: Add a short video of self-introduction to observe the contestants' variety show attributes, and classify the students into labels, such as "overtime dog", to facilitate dissemination and packaging and increase storytelling.
• Competition stage: soft implantation of sponsors, for example: implantation model, process stage: 25 to 10, 10 to 5, competition track: design graduates VS self-taught party, create economic value + communication point: vote related to Coolhome content such as membership, incentive system, official account.
• Competition format: The competition process is interspersed with interviews with celebrities and students (their thoughts on the test questions, the thoughts of other competing students, and the mentors' thoughts on the students' works); pre-script + post-editing to increase the highlights of the competition.

4. Main label confirmation

04 Student-side communication

After determining the relevant goals and core design keywords, we began to systematically build the visuals of the entire project. The most difficult part of the entire Creation Camp project is how to distinguish the application scenarios, groups, and distribution channels at different stages within the same visual system while maintaining the integrity of the brand vision.

1. Pre-launch posters on the site

By deconstructing the main logo of Kujula, we hope to represent the inspiration of design by opening up a technological tunnel that leads to the light of the future, and through it we can see more possibilities for future design.

Tutor version:

Student version:

2. Preheat TVC

The design team independently created the promotional video for "Creation Camp" (story script + storyboard + 3D modeling rendering + music synthesis). Although the TVC as a small easter egg of an event cannot directly bring about substantial data conversion, it has played an indispensable role in enhancing the scale and brand sense of the entire event.

Storyboards are very important in pre-production because they determine the core of the animation: the theme and emotion of the story. The TVC was originally designed to be a 15-second video, with five scenes used in the storyboard setting. On average, each scene was shown for only 3 seconds, making it difficult for the audience to understand the video correctly. Taking these issues into consideration, we extended the duration of the entire TVC.

3. Project official website channel page

05 Master side communication

Why did two different systems split out under the dissemination of the same visual system? The answer is that when communicating with people of different identities, the visual preferences of the people being communicated to are also completely different. Compared with the students, the overall design style of the communication instructors has also abandoned the previous sense of marketing technology, and while retaining the elements of the Creation Camp, it has transformed into a simple and elegant style that is more in line with the recognition of high-end designers.

1. Tutor dissemination video

Compared with previous activities, the videos from the TVC mentor side focus more on highlighting the characters and activity information.

2. Project official website channel page

3. Poster Template

06 Offline Salon

In the end, the offline salon was different from the online one in that it further strengthened the brand symbol of Chuang 2021, using a variety of different materials to create six different offline visuals. Instead, we choose to support it with a symbol system to meet the dual standards of visual creativity and continuity, form a synergy of brand recognition, and achieve better communication benefits.

Regarding the key visual, we are thinking more about how to operate all six events in a templated manner, so that the overall offline activities can maintain high-quality design output without taking up too many internal designer resources. First, we took inventory of all the printed materials that would appear in the salon, and then used the first event as a template to standardize the layout of all visual aspects.

In order to expand and extend faster and better, we then output all specifications into a manual for suppliers to strictly follow.

Material display:

Photo archive:

07 Ending

The design time of the entire project spanned more than half a year, with nine online live broadcasts and six offline activities. We heard many people saying "this is actually Kuaijiale", and the entire brand IP of Chuang 2021 has gradually been recognized by more and more practitioners in the industry.

Judging from feedback from all parties, Kujula’s awareness of tool expertise has been further enhanced, and professional designers are gradually recognizing the power of technology + creativity. The IP influence of Cool+Creation Camp has been amplified again. Young designers on site and from communication channels said that the "Future Master Training Program" meets the needs of design talents to break through the circle and grow, and they look forward to going deeper into Coolhome to understand the comprehensive empowerment of pioneering designers.

Seeing the designers participating in each event come from all corners of the world and always leave with great success, I think this is the significance of the entire event.

At the end of the project, the design team also accumulated some experience and summarized some methods, which can be regarded as some reflections on past activities.

The main points are as follows:

1. Clarify the purpose of the event and don’t simply diverge from unnecessary visual styles from the perspective of a visual designer.
2. For long-term activities, it is important to do a good job of project management and phased time planning, and to promptly synchronize progress and organize reviews upward and downward to ensure information transparency.
3. Creative design is important, but when outputting creativity, it is still necessary to maintain the tone of the overall event.
4. After receiving the demand, summarize and summarize the rules first. When a large number of scattered demands are templated, a large amount of manpower can be released.

Author: Xiaofu

Source: Cool Home User Experience Design