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SkyCity: The Think Tank
How to create a communications strategy that facilitates the dissemination of a product and which in turn is capable of generating an even greater strategy?
Thinking of revolutionizing what could be the most conservative industry, Broad Group developed a building material called BCORE, which is made of stainless steel, allows to build quickly and in the process, there are zero CO2 emissions. However, after years of development, the communication structure was not there. This is how I structured the steps to create a communication structure that multiplies the future.
The first step: create a group of creatives behind the material that serves as a platform to expand this product outside the borders of China. The strategy was simple: let's take an established brand (SkyCity) and put a team behind. It is the first step to humanize the material, which was difficult to explain. Then, we created an office around it, made with three creative people: Daniel Zhang (China), Gabor (Czech Republic) and Dan Gamboa (Colombia): SkyCity Think Tank.
A think tank or policy institute is a research institute that conducts research and promotional activities on topics such as social policy, political strategy, economy, military, technology, and culture. It is the perfect structure to start building communication actions on BCORE in virtual environments mainly. SkyCity is then an internal communication and creativity consultancy for Broad.
Action 1: SkyCity Challenge 2019: The Future of Housing
After the experience of SkyCity Challenge 17, it was decided as the first action to resume the contest and create a new call for students and professionals to rethink the future of housing using BCORE as material.
We want participants to design a home that can be disassembled after its period of use and used again as parts of some modular system (examples. LEGO® or IKEA®). A house, made of prefabricated sheets, that can be easily disassembled. All housing must be in BCORE and fit in a standard 40-foot container. Everyone is invited to participate, from anywhere in the world. At least one of the team members must be fluent in any of the three most used languages: English, Spanish or Chinese. We will distribute $ 17,000 in prizes and As part of the award, the winning team will be allowed on BroadTOWN to make part of the Spring Residency 2020.
The graphic identity of the contest is modular and abstract so as not to give participants an idea of the different possibilities they can achieve with the material. As strategies for approaching participants such as the use of cordial and casual language, creation of videos and interviews with jurors and documents that facilitate the delivery of proposals.
SkyCity big action in 2019 was the challenge, which counted with more than 1000 participants, configured on 714 teams and 170 valid entries. SkyCity.com, as a platform, counted with 26,295 visits and 72,177 page views. From all the visit, 14,818 came by direct search, meaning the 56.3% of the traffic.
Action 2: Website and social media
As a next step, it was decided to renew the page and start creating social networks for the think-tank. After a branding matrix process, it is decided to unify everything under the nickname "joinskycity" to emphasize the open invitation to be part of the platform. Similarly, all visual language is highlighted by blocks of colors that capture the user's attention.
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Action 3: External consulting, Harvard GSD.
After consolidating a strategy for the product under the figure of the think-tank and thus beginning its international projection, I proposed to start weaving ties with academies and universities that allow us to have the first diagnoses on the company in general, BROAD. Francisco Brown of Harvard Graduate School of Design (also a jury of the SkyCity Challenge 19) was the guest and did extensive pre-branding work for the company that included brand study, interviews, literature review and creative auditing with the goal of creating a visible roadmap that allowed to create a clear communicational and creative strategy around the material. The consulting process was developed during the month of August 2018.
Action 4: Image and video production
One of the things that think-thank detected is that the product has zero image production around it. I focused all the photographic work on the "core" of the product (that is, its tubular structure). Also, I created the first video campaign with the material.
Action 5: Workshops and training
After the prebranding process and the proposal to create a communications and creativity department within the company, the next action is to detect who are the potential members of the organization that can be part of this future department. For this, the strategy used is to create workshops or workshops that allow us as a think tank to detect these people.
Action 6: One Week Building Campaign
Broad then decides to build an entirely BCORE building in 8 days. This was the perfect opportunity to showcase the fast construction and efficiency of the material. Seeing the denial when doing a “live”, the “one week building campaign” was created, where it was proposed to create a “stop motion feed” using Instagram Stories by publishing a photo of the building being built every hour.
Finally, on December 1, 2019, the winners of the SkyCity Challenge are revealed. They were chosen from different parts of the world such as Sweden, Colombia and Hong Kong, among 170 participants.