Proposal
This is our understanding of the situation. What follows is our proposed solution and supporting explanations to achieve the ultimate goals discussed.
Executive Summary
Artstation is a community Arts Center based on Ponsonby Road in Auckland. They are part of the Auckland City Council and have been providing a broad range of art classes, exhibition space and studio hire for Aucklanders for 35 years. They are based in the former Ponsonby Road police barracks, which is a protected historical building.
Every three weeks Artstation holds an exhibition. These exhibitions are scheduled several months in advance and are a really great platform for artists across the board to gain exposure of their work.
The main use of Artstation is the art class programs that they hold. The tutors for these classes are practicing artists. Artstation advertises adult classes, young people classes and children’s classes, which are based on a term-by-term calendar that is in sync with the school system terms.
With a really great base in adult and young children involvement at Artstation they are looking to increase the involvement of the youth sector in their classes which is where they feel they are missing out. Artstation wants to communicate to the youth (14-25) that they exist as a core facility for Auckland Arts and that the framework of their classes exists as a means for fostering and exciting the youth in their artistic endeavors.
The internal mission statement/philosophy for the youth is to excite, engage and empower
Current Situation
The efforts that have been made by Artstation to help attain this goal of youth involvement have been good elementary steps. Artstation has a web presence as a branch of the Auckland city council website and they have set up a Facebook page that is updated on average between 2 - 5 times per week with what is going on at Artstation. This means that a Google search for Artstation lands the searcher firstly with the Auckland city council page for Artstation and within the first 10 hits the link to the Facebook page.
Some problems that we established with these communication attempts were that they lacked a single marketing strategy to the youth. They acknowledge the strict ramifications as being part of the Auckland city council limit the creativeness of the website page which does not have any artistic spirit or inspiration that supports Artstation’s actual philosophy. Although all the information is set out relatively clearly and is quite easy to navigate it is almost so plainly laid out that it errs on the side of boring. We established this as a concern as with the target audience they are aiming to attain - having a page that does not produce any visual stimuli is unlikely to encourage further investigation into Artstation.
Similarly with the Facebook site, although having a page on Facebook is a good use of social media devices it is very broad in who it is targeting and is more of an information for all forum. This was confirmed by an analysis of the information that is supplied on the page, as there were images of older woman students having a morning tea alongside very young children’s classes - which becomes a great way to show the overall happenings at Artstation but not ideal as a means for targeting a specific demographic. The thumbnail image is also very pixilated but this would be something that would be easy to combat.
Target Audience
As mentioned the main audience is the youth, which has been defined by Artstation as 14 - 25. Obviously this will require some attention, as the way to target a 14 year old is different to the way you target a 25 year old. School students and university students wanting to improve skills are a big area that has been discussed in this youth sector. Young adults in the 20-25 as a generalization will be working and so an interest in the art for these people may be more of a hobby or an exploration into something new and so it is the idea of accessibility and opportunity to get involved in an exciting arts center that will become a pivotal concept to speak to these age groups.
Project Goals
Artstation is wanting the youth to be excited by the arts and subsequently become more involved in what they can offer in so far as classes, studio hire and exhibition space. Artstation wants a strategy that will speak to young people in Auckland in a way that is inviting and shows them as a place to really explore their artistic ideas/potential. We have attained that the current systems are not speaking to the youth and therefore a communications based strategy in combination with a reimaging for an online space are needed
Creative Strategy
We have had to work backwards from the ultimate goal of this project. Ultimately Artstation will have a self-sustaining online space that directs solely to students and young adults about arts across Auckland, ways to become involved in the Arts and of course Artstation classes, hiring opportunities and exhibitions. With the application processes that need to be gone through with the Auckland City Council we are proposing to create an online space in the form of a blog. This will be a valuable tool for promotion for Artstation as it will appear in the top few hits on a Google search and still be affiliated with Artstation, however in a way that allows a youth voice to speak for them. To take another step back there is the question of sustainability and therefore a student committee made up from University and school students will be appointed to maintain the blog and work towards the ultimate website. Another vehicle for advertising on the website will be a promotional video that can be shown in schools and universities that sells the spirit of Artstation and as a way to introduce one to the other.
In summary the three main things that will we working towards are
A informative and promotional blog
A student committee
A promotional video
