Get out! and PLAY!

Get out and Play proposal

What is it:

It is a movement to support parks and recreations and try to motivate society to get out and be more social and active with one another. It would be an ad campaign inspires local communities into spending more time in their parks and to better inform individuals about the mental and physical health of being outside. Today society spends so much time on their phones, computers, ipads, and watching TV that the tendency now is to stay indoors and look at pinterest or chat on facebook because it is convenient and less effort. The mission of this campaign is to create a desire and curiosity within individuals to question if they are active enough and to inspire said individuals to become more present their physical surroundings. In short to inspire society to interact with one another again.

Why:

I am doing this because of a trend I have realized within my own life and even my own social circles of people shutting out their physical relationships and interaction and constantly being plugged into their technological relationships. For my senior thesis design I am working on a project based on challenging people to question their addiction to technology and put their phones away. My senior thesis project sparked me create this proposal. The says of chivalry, manners, and communication have been slowly ebbing away thanks to social networking and the availability of portable technology. The ability to instantly be connected and busy with phones had developed this need to constantly be entertained and a discomfort in traveling alone or not having a conversation. While technology has brought us into the future and enabled us to achieve developments and abilities to connect that would have been thought impossible 20 years ago, it ahs also brought with it a curse. Our humanity towards one another is disappearing, or consciousness of the physical reality and surrounding is becoming less and less. We no longer hold eye contact when in conversation, which is an important quality to have when interviewing, it becoming harder to meet people in your day-to-day. We spend more time in our own comes in comparison to outside, excluding traveling from work and home. I want to challenge this perspective and get people to become more interested in being active and willing to meet their community and one another in person rather than over social media platforms from home. Possibly initiate a “cell phone free day” where individuals spend a day without their phone and lose that feeling of nakedness or panic that usually occurs when without their technology. Hopefully this will create a habit of going out to lunch or community events and meeting people. Ideally this would then lead to a chain reaction of people getting together and planning outings or BBQ’s and spreading this habit.

Goals:

My coal is to inspire participation in individuals to get and try to be active, to be more willing to say hello to a stranger and talk to the physical person next to them on the bus rather than put their headphones in and sit in silence. I want these posters to inspire people to host or create events with friends and communities, or in the city friendly soccer matches, or Frisbee. Getting out and being social and active puts smiles on faces, and this mean more people will be happy and not sitting at home bored. When ever there are event in SF people seem to like them and get out, when needs to happen is inspire the individual to get out not just on those occasions but also in the smaller settings and outings. 

Audience:

Ideally I would like to appeal to all ages but I feel the more strategic way is to target an audience between the ages of 20-40. I feel this is the best age because at this time in life individuals are more willing to be active, are in charge of their own lives, and are more interested in educating themselves. While students are being education it is more out of necessity than interest. The Ask.com campaign billboards can attest to this through their questions posted by the freeways in SF. Those questions are seen and individuals become curious in the answers, later researching the answer. Once I saw an ad they did that asked how deep the bay was, instantly I was curious because I never though about it and once I got home I had to know. Then was shocked to find out how shallow it really was and that there is constant excavation to enable the freight ships to pass through.  Because of this add I became more aware and educated about my surroundings and city. Those questions are seen and then researched because Ask.com does a great job of drawing in the audience through curiosity and interest in self-education. It is an optional participation but often your will find because of that more individuals and audiences participate. This age is ideal as well because it is the age when people are getting married, dating, or having children. By motivating them it will hopefully become a chain reaction and they will pass it on to either their partners, spouses, or children.

Approach:

I want to approach this proposal though a series of posters and advertisements on muni busses and bus stops. I would also like to have an online website like spirithoods.com that is both retail and education. Spirit Hoods is a company that did a fantastic job of creating a stylish unique product that supports a belief or fund. They develop animal hoods of endangered species that when bought donate to that animals revival, as well as educate you through small fun facts. On my website I will have statistics that are easy to comprehend about time spent outside vs. online. I would also like to education local communities on where their parks are and list events that happen in those parks. And example would be like Doloras park and how every weekend you are guaranteed people will be there, or how Hayes street has a food market and children’s festival a few times a year. I would also like to educate the audience as to the theme of the parks ie. If they are dog friendly, have a children’s playground, if there is drinking allowed ect. By leading them to the already developed apps that SFrec park has. With the money that is spent on merchandise I would hope to put it towards future events or the creation of future events on parks like the lantern lighting festival or bay to breakers for the clean up jobs. The SFPD and Gov would of course have to approve these event but hopefully with the right planning it would appeal and be approved. Hopefully after enough funding and interest in this campaign the scope and reach of it could expand to more than just San Francisco,like the Ad Council website does with ad’s on youtube. They key is reaching as many people as possible and succeeding in the appeal to be outside.

Design:

The design aspect of this campaign will be the creation of eye catching posters, informative one line posters, Logo Design, and retail design screen printing. These retail designs will include the shapes or themes of the parks, funny images or slogans of city events like bay-to-brakers, or props you can buy for the events like team outfits.