case study
table of contents the artists 4 - the team the canvas 6 - background the narrative 8 - summary the composition 14 - situational analysis the palette 20 - insights the voice 26 - brand voice the brushwork 34 - content creation the tone 44 - brand development 2
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t e me the m a te micaiah ransby
nina bayani
nhilynn nguyen
account executive micaiahransby@gmail.com
project manager murushruti@gmail.com
PR specialist nina.bayani@gmail.com
digital specialist nguyennhilynn@gmail.com
katie quinn
bri hopkins
jade rochez
zach daniels
art director kgquinn98@gmail.com 4
shruti muruganandan
copywriter bmhopkins01@gmail.com
fetch strategist mariarochez123@gmail.com
intern zdaniels20@athensacademy.org 5
THE CANVAS The first step and blank page needed to begin our work was understanding the company background.
The K.A. Artist Shop is a one-stop art shop that carries a variety of art supplies and a wide selection of classes including drawing, painting, calligraphy, and children’s summer camps. Stocked with a colorful array of art supplies, stationary, and gifts, they provide high quality and ethically responsible products at fair prices that can be bought in-person or online. As a pillar within the local art community, K. A. Artist Shop promotes the power of creativity and local artists by photographing, printing, framing, and displaying their work.
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executive summary
THE NARRATIVE
With a variety of supplies, services, and social opportunities, the K. A. Artist Shop held the potential to become a unique and vibrant space on digital platforms. Located in the heart of Athens, Georgia inside a sunny, second-floor studio, the shop welcomes locals, tourists, and students with openarms. The shop’s friendly staff and diversity of products helps the shop thrive among an art-centered community. However, the sought out help to strengthen elements of their brand that could carry on to create more successful, digital advertising efforts.
(noun) • the takeaway and essential story behind our creative efforts 8
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the strategy Taking into consideration our client’s unique challenges, we set to work devising the best possible strategy to achieve her goals. We decided that collaborative work across all roles of our team was the best way to achieve our client’s goals, since her objectives were broad and far-reaching. This meant consistently preparing content and ideas to bring to our weekly client meetings - utilizing teamwork in this aspect was a hugely helpful approach, as it helped us not get so burnt out individually. There was constant idea generation, not only within our team, but among the entire Talking Dog environment.
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To build a consistent and simplified brand identity, we set to work developing a copy guide for our client to consult, reaching out to targeted news outlets with brand-related messaging and devising social media concepts to better showcase the K. A. Artist Shop brand. Focusing more on educational practices for our client was a bit more difficult to strategize for but we ended up creating a brand voice workshop full of knowledge of social media and copy do’s and don’ts, a YouTube crash course where we walked our client through a basic filming process she could recreate for Youtube, and a research campaign launch where we showed our client just how powerful consumer insights can be!
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considerations By working with the K. A. Artist Shop, we’ve been able to execute creative concepts related to brand voice, content creation, and business development. Most importantly, we’ve been able to leave our client with a strong foundational knowledge of her brand identity and how thoughtful, effective advertising can be utilized. Through expansive and collaborative teamwork, we’ve been able to craft a powerful image of the K. A. Artist Shop that will help solidify the client’s brand identity for years to come.
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STRENGTHS
local competitors, bigger competitors (online bulk retailers), large inventory to be processed via website, preventing online sales
THREATS
Interest in organic/ sustainable products, growing DIY community, interest in buying local over corporations, increasing space for brands within social platforms
Hidden store placement - upstairs, incomplete website, personal vs. business social media accounts, lack of brand awareness
WEAKNESSES
Powerful branding ideas, knowledgeable staff, store location (DT), wide product & service variety
OPPORTUNITIES
SWOT
THE COMPOSITION
(noun) • the structure of our brand’s key points: strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities 14
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competitors There are a few artist shops that compete with K. A. Artist Shop with their biggest, local competitor being Treehouse Kid & Craft. K. A. Artist Shop’s biggest, corporate competitors are Michael’s and Hobby Lobby; these are national brands that sell a large assortment of lower-quality products for low prices.
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challenges Our client tasked us with developing a consistent and simplified brand identity. While our team worked hard to create creative assets and campaign concepts with hopes of seeing them go live, our client was more interested in learning the proper practices in regards to branding and content creation rather than physically implementing campaigns and producing a certain numerical goal. This challenge required us to collaboratively work with the client and adjust our team responsibilities appropriately as the year continued.
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insights In order to help our client gather the insights they wanted on Gen Z, we created two surveys directed towards their main target audiences: UGA Art Students and Athens Locals.
THE PALETTE
shopping habits survey This survey, with a total of 23 responses, aimed to learn more about the in-store and online shopping habits of UGA‘s art students including average price ranges and regularity of shopping.
customer survey The objective of the customer survey was to gather customer feedback on K. A. Artist shop from Athens locals.
(noun) • the different colors we were given and how we utilized them 20
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survey data + insights The average age of participants was 20 years old. The two most popular art supply students but add KA were painting and art tools.
52%
students spend approximately $100-$300 a year on art supplies
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69% students have shopped for our supplies online in the past year
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78% students said they have shopped at K.A Artist shop at least once
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target audience profiles UGA Students:Our client aimed to become a resource for UGA students for all of their creative needs. Rather than focusing on art students, they wanted to focus on all educational fields that had some sort of art-based background (i.e: studio art, interior design, landscape architecture, etc.). Townies:The client focused on local outreach while their ideal situation consisted of being well-known in Athens. This goal meant that we had to focus on our client as being a local hot-spot, which provides competition amongst other local businesses in Athens that already have recognition that the store aimed to achieve. Local artists The K.A. Artist Shop wanted to focus on growing this preexisting network and strengthen their relationships with local artists to show that their shop is a viable resource in the local art community in Athens.
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NEWSLETTER
brand voice
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E-mail marketing is a significantly effective form of reaching consumers. We wanted to show K.A. that a simplified, engaging newsletter would not only better match their brand, but also ease the process of writing and organizing pertinent shop information. Our revised newsletter creates a more personalized experience for recipients, driving more traffic to K.A.’s website.
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examples staff bios
Small businesses should capitalize on their ability to employ local resources and make a name within their community. By including six, personalized staff bios on their website, K.A. Artist Shop is enhancing their brand as a small business by highlighting the community members that make up their staff, customers, and supporters.
Kristen Ashley MacCarthy @kaartist
Through studying art and philosophy, managing a popular Athens restaurant, and running her own Etsy store, Kristen eventually found her passion by opening the K.A. Artist Shop. As founder and owner, Kristen does a little bit of everything with the help of her miniature, domestic walrus, Wally. If K.A. Artist Shop were a K-Pop band, she’d easily be “the dance mom,” providing endless support and resources for her staff, patrons, and the Athens art community. When she’s got some time on her hands, Kristen’s doing pencil drawings, oil paintings or calligraphy. (But usually, it’s just abstract doodles with whatever pens and markers are laying around the shop.) She’s a rainbow pastel enthusiast inspired by Constantin Brancusi and fueled by LaCroix.
So, how do we keep things running smoothly around here? That’s easy; it’s our shop manager, Christina. From running camps to classes and everything in between, she’s our jack of all trades. Her inspiring warmth and calmness helps keep things afloat here at K.A. Artist Shop and we’re so grateful to have her. Among many things, Cristina’s also a dancer, drawer, and now, painter. Surrealist Remedio Varo and Impressionist Henri Rousseau are her favorite artists and she hopes to dive deeper into the art world through gouache and oil painting. She’s a big fan of the color Burgundy, a cold Tangerine LaCroix, and her sweet, tuxedo cat, Roger. Kristen Ashley MacCarthy @kaartist
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Copy guidE
With her personal Instagram evolving into her business Instagram, shop owner, Kristen Ashley, found an overlap in personal voice versus potential brand voice when posting on social platforms. A copy guide featuring brand values, statements, do’s & don’t’s, and example posts would aid in refining the brand voice to better represent K.A. Artist Shop as a whole rather than an individual person.
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brand
values
Once a shoe-selling, Etsy shop, K.A. has evolved into a multifaceted creative hub where seasoned artists and curious creatives can source high-quality, affordable supplies, learn new skills, or simply explore sparkling ideas. We aspire to promote local art and cultivate a community where every kind of artist is cherished and embraced. From the beginning sketches of an idea to final execution, K.A. Artist Shop is here to help provide, guide, and support artists of any caliber.
Quality, transparency, communication, and imagination. We want to help people bring their creative ideas to fruition and inspire others to look towards art as a project, outlet, or experiment. We strive to be a welcoming and colorful environment that houses a variety of quality products, classes, and art projects.
voice We choose our words carefully, but that doesn’t mean we’re not afraid to get a little weird. We speak and write in ways that are imaginative and pretty, yet still have substance.
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personality Passionate, friendly, and always with a smile. We’re approachable, inquisitive, and a little out there. Fueled by LaCroix and soft words of encouragement, we’re usually found aimlessly doodling or daydreaming about our next big project.
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THE BRUSHWORK
(noun) • the final executions and creative assets for the K. A. Artist shop 34
event flyers love show + face painting promotional content 35
For this series of “Staff Favorites” graphics, we created personalized graphics with illustrations of each of the six staff members’ favorite produtcs in the shop. The goal of this project was to give the shop a more personable tone, while also highlighting a variety of the products that they offer at the store.
“staff favorites” graphics
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Insta story templates User generated content such as social media story templates allows for the brand to increase their impressions and brand awareness. Templates with their brand logo and have CTA’s that focus on their shop would help not only increase impressions, but allow for their current consumers to feel like part of their community.
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photography K. A. does a great job at hosting local events and galleries with ample opportunities for the community to participate. However, they lacked high-quality photography of the shop’s events and products. A focus in photography would provide the client with powerful content and room to enhance future promotional materials. Our photography team captured the colorful, detailed atmosphere that K. A. strives to manifest. The crisp, clean images lend themselves well to establishing a consistent digital presence that remains friendly, diverse, and creative.
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face painting
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the love show
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the pitc h Development of new media relations/
BRAND DEVELOPMENT
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By having academic advisors raise awareness of the K.A. Artist Shop through various newsletters, we can easily reach the targeted audience within the UGA community that the client had in mind. In addition to getting more in touch with the UGA community, the client also wanted to solidify their place in the Athens community. The ideal situation was that the K.A. Artist Shop would grow in popularity amongst both the UGA community and Athens at large and it would be the staple, goto place for people in Athens to buy art supplies.
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BRAND VOICE WORKSHOP
The purpose of the social media workshop was to analyze their current social media platforms and help them develop a better understanding of social media beyond the typical user as well as increase engagement. During the workshop, our team emphasized quality of content, humanizing the brand, and creating an organized posting schedule for their staff to follow. Our team also brought attention to a potential content calendar and posting schedule for the staff. Although the client is small, creating an organized way to reach their audience would help them focus on improving their strategy, allow the Instagram and Facebook algorithms to prioritize their posts, and again, improve engagement.
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YOUTUBE CHANNEL
By helping our client conceptualize, film, revise and produce a channel trailer, our client was able to envision a robust YouTube presence for her brand that would boost recognition, sales, and content creation. Along with creating the structure of the shop’s channel, our team created a YouTube channel intro to be placed before all future channel videos; this gives the brand a clear identity and sense of professionalism on the platform.
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“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.� - Vincent Van Gogh
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