THE URBAN PLAYGROUND

From finding some reports on personal space and outside entertainemnt I have come up with the trend 'The Urban Playground'. This relates to brands creating their own space within the city / within their market and using it as their own playground to do with what they want. This trend aims to create a large amount of interaction with consumers, allowing them to feel that the brand is talking directly to them, and build strong relationships.

Below is what I have written for our trend document...

Brands today are expected to be innovative and creative as consumers become accustomed to surreal ideas. This has resulted in it becoming increasingly important for brands to “remain experimental and original, in contrast to more conventional or established ideas.” (Melius, L. in WGSN 2011: Online)

With a new trend in urban and outdoor entertainment brands are jumping on the band-wagon to “convert the unexpected into urban playgrounds” (Marshall-Johnson, R. in WGSN 2010: Online). In 2010 artist duo, FriendsWithYou turned the city of Toronto into a magical world of colour and fun with a series of interactive art installations for the Wish Come True Festival to create, what was called, the Rainbow City. (SEE BELOW)

Consumers love the simple but “innovative ideas that come from creating a personal space in the city” (Marshall-Johnson, R. in WGSN 2010: Online) and with an increase in aspects such as rooftop entertainment and events this is set to take off into the marketing world to give brands the opportunity to develop a relationship with their consumers in their own, personal space away from other competitors.


Examples of Urban Playgrounds

O Street designs urban playground for a new exhibition
Glasgow agency, O Street, recently designed 'Our Urban Playground'. This is a new exhibition made out of cardboard at The Lighthouse gallery in Glasgow.
This exhibition examines the theme of designing for sport and leisure in UK cities with the concept featuring seats which double as tables and walls to a basketball hoop that collects scrunched up feedback forms.

I think this is a brilliant idea and, as the image below shows, it looks amazing and really effective. The fact that this exhibition also revolves around sport lifestyle is also really relevant for this project and New Balance themselves and is something that I believe is a good example of a space being turned into an Urban Playground.

Performance artists create human sculptures in urban spaces across London

A performance art group of 24 performers, called 'Bodies in Urban Spaces', performed a choreographed moving event to create human sculptures throughout London. These grabbed pedestrian attention and caused a 'buzz' and hype around the performance art group.

Return of rooftop entertainment

After a small trend in 2006, the act of rooftop entertainment is slowly coming back into the limelight in todays culture. As consumers continuously need to be wowed and entertained in new and exciting ways events such as rooftop theatres and bars have been seen slowly taking their hold. This aspect creates an unexpected space into an entertaining area which is something that New Balance could keep in mind and also that we can take inspiration from for our campaign.

New York - Key to the city

Artist Paul Ramírez Jonas reinvented the idea of the key to the city for the summer of 2010. These keys to the city would unlock more than 20 hidden spaces at sites across five boroughs of New York, sending people on a treasure hunt-like search with their keys. 

The concept of the idea is to exchange your key with other worthy New Yorkers before starting your hunt, with a map included, for the secret spaces over New York.

I love how this idea has been made into some sort of game for individuals by relating it to a treasure hunt, and also by making the spaces hidden and secretive. By appealing to the child within, while also keeping a more serious and grown up aspect to this idea, it was very successdul and many individuals signed up on the day to collect keys for themselves but also to give out to other New Yorkers.