MATICA LAUNDROBAR
Millennial renters in Vancouver need somewhere to wash their clothes - But they also need more time to socialize, more time to work, and more time to just hang out. Matica Laundrobar will offer all of that, in one hip, cool package.
Matica Laundrobar (School Project)
Business Launch Campaign
September 2017 - December 2017
Project Brief and Background
For my final year in the Graphic Design for Marketing program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, I was tasked with developing a business idea that met an unmet need in the Vancouver market. After discussing the scope of this project with friends, and as a Millennial renter myself, I came to the conclusion that what Vancouver is missing is a dual-purpose laundromat and bar. Vancouver is home to many rental properties, quite a few of which do not have laundry facilities, or else have communal laundry facilities that require the user to supervise their laundry to prevent theft or load-swapping. Because of this, many renters (mainly Millennials) have to either haul their dirty laundry to laundromats or to the shared facilities, and stand around for hours while they wait for their loads to finish, often within very strict timeframes. This means that these laundry facilities have a captive audience, but offer their captive audience no enjoyable way to spend the time between laundry loads. This project proposes a laundromat with attached bar with hours that appeal to the Millennial market. The offer includes: 3 locations each with 20 HE washers and 20 HE dryers, a full-service bar, lounge & bar seating, board games and free wifi. As a result, the Millennials of Vancouver can now do laundry on their own terms.
Research
To determine the most attractive neighbourhoods for this project, I consulted the Vancouver Community Census and discovered that the Vancouver neighbourhoods with the highest numbers of Millennials are Kitsilano (42.1%) (source), Grandview-Woodland (38%) (source), and Mount Pleasant (47.4%) (source) and then cross-referenced those numbers with the number of people living in apartments under five stories (including houses converted into multi-unit dwellings). Interestingly, the neighbourhoods with the highest number of residents in apartments under five stories were the same as the neighbourhoods with the highest number of millennials, with Kitsilano having 67.6%, Grandview-Woodland having 65%, and Mount Pleasant having 69.1%. I went on to research the target market segments that live in these neighbourhoods using Environics Analytics (source, page 40) and found that two specific Millennial segments lived in these neighbourhoods, which were identified as the Urban Digerati and Grads & Pads.
The Urban Digerati Segment are described as young, educated city singles that are university educated, rent their home, are tech-savvy, culturally diverse and have active social lives (source, page 8). The Grads & Pads Segment are identified as being young, single urban renters that are university educated, enjoy their freedom, are night owls, and frequent bars, nightclubs and galleries (source, page 21).
Strategy and Approach
The overarching strategy of this project was to offer the target market something that they want to do (socialize) with something that they have to do (laundry).
Millennial renters in Vancouver need somewhere to wash their clothes. But they also need more time to socialize, more time to work, and more time to just hang out. Matica Laundrobar will offer all of that, in one hip, cool package. The audience can wash their clothes while having a beer with friends, stop in to chat with their friend that's doing laundry, wash their clothes while catching up on Netflix, or get some work done and enjoy a beer while they wait for their clothes to dry. Matica will be the only business of it's kind in Vancouver, with its branding reflecting that. The target audience will be reached through traditional Out Of Home Advertising, as 48% of Millennials in Canada report using ad-blocking software, but 75% of Millennials report paying attention to OOH advertising “some of the time” or “all the time” (source).
The Design solution
In developing a brand identity, I looked at brands that resonate with Millennials, such as Spotify, Ban.do, and Vans. I aimed to create a brand that married 90’s nostalgia with the feel of mid-century modern aesthetics. To do this, I employed the use of patterns, but toned it down with colours reminiscent of the Mid-Century aesthetic, using teal and teak with shades and tones thereof. The photography style is monochromatic and tongue-in-cheek, making use of cropping, drop shadows and patterns, allowing the brand to be seen as current, fun and relatable. I wanted the visual style to be collage-like, as this is an emerging trend, with Deposit Photos stating that for 2018 “Cropping images, combining them in unexpected ways and playing around with different mediums and effects introduces something a little more unexpected from visual content.” (source)
Challenges
There were a number of challenges when developing the scope of this project, the first of which being how to reach the target audience, working on the assumption of a limited budget. The solution to this was to employ street posters, posted in the above-mentioned neighbourhoods. Millennials respond more favourably to Out Of Home advertising (OOH), with Millennials trusting OOH advertising more than online video ads and online paid advertising (source).
Another challenge was creating imagery that would resonate with the target audience. I went through many iterations, using stock photos and illustrations before I came to the conclusion that the best way to procure compelling imagery for this project was to create my own.
Effectiveness/Results
As this was a school project, this concept was not put into place in any real-world applications. However, at the end of this project it was presented to an audience of my peers and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Many audience members stated that this concept fulfilled an unmet need of the renters of Vancouver and is a business that they would support.