Week 5 - Competitive Research
What’cha been up to?
It's already week 5 of the semester?! Wow.
A lot has happened for the past few weeks in Capstone. We've started getting into the designing phase of our projects, while also continuing research and exploring more of visuals. I'm excited and kind of nervous. But slowly, but surely, I'm making progress.
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So basically, this week, I came up with some moodboards and color palettes, as well as started to sketch out some possible concepts for what my app would look like. I unintentionally chose some pastel palettes, and my classmates and professor suggested that I continue exploring more gender neutral palettes. There's nothing wrong with a girly color palette--if my intended audience was aimed towards girls. But, ideally, I wanted my app to be approachable for any gender and age. I've also started sketching out concepts for my characters, and even started getting into a bit of logo designing.
Competitors
So anyway, let's get to the actual topic of this post--the research of my competitors. Research, I feel, is a pretty important phase of any art project, especially when you want to make sure to come up with something new, refreshing, or different. It's also the stage that can feel a little long, especially when you want to jump to designing asap. But patience is virtue. So here we go.
Competitor #1: Build-A-Bear Workshop
Link: https://www.buildabear.com
Build-A-Bear is a unique, global brand that sells custom stuffed animals to kids and kids at heart. They sell an experience of making your very own stuffed or teddy bear. I've selected this company because they're the most well-known company out there that offers customizable stuffed animals.
Their implied market is kids and kids at heart. And maybe the occasional plushie collector.
Their visual style is very colorful and kid-friendly. Their main colors are yellow, blue, and red (which are the primary colors of the color wheel!). Their branding style is very illustrated and approachable, and they offer a variety of different types of teddy bears and characters. Their teddy bears all have a happy expression. On every one of their teddy bears is a paw print logo with "BAB" on it. Their website is mainly white with color accents. The colors aren't too harsh, and the use of type is also easy to read as well. Their stores are also known to have a lot of yellow, which is a very eye-catching color!
I read an article by New York Times and it had some interesting information regarding to how BAB integrated technology into their stores. According to NY Times, as a way to better immerse themselves into the ever-changing future, Build-A-Bear implemented technology into their stores, using interactive kiosks to entertain children and keep them coming back. They also added digital advertisements to display in their stores as well. During their process of adding technology to their stores, they reached out to kids and parents to test them out. They offered mini games that customers could play and also use their technology stations throughout their stores to further enhance hands-on interaction and engagement.
Also, I've also learned that BAB offer other interesting things in their stores. According to cheatsheet.com, the author states that "they've [Build-a-Bear] since produced more than 160 million stuffed animals and give customs the option to add sounds, scents, and clothing to their bears, in addition to many other customizable options" (Weiler 1). Build-a-bear has also offered a "Pay Your Age" special where customers could buy a bear for the price of their child's age. I've heard about the "Pay Your Age" special, and let me tell you, the lines are VERY long.
Competitor #2: Pusheen
Link: https://pusheen.com
Pusheen is a female cartoon cat who shows up on comics and sticker sets on social media, such as FB, Instagram, iMessage, and more. She’s basically an internet celebrity and a brand. Pusheen Corp is an Illinois-based company. I've selected Pusheen because Pusheen is very well-known worldwide and their brand can be found in many different stores such as Walmart, Hot Topic, Box Lunch, Amazon, H&M, Macy’s, Barnes and Noble, and much more. Pusheen also has her own cafe in certain countries as well.
Pusheen's market is aimed for literally anyone who likes cats or loves cute things.
Pusheen's visual style is simple yet very distinct. The way Pusheen characters are drawn are cartoony and also cute! She shows up in many different mediums, such as comics, gifs, Facebook stickers, plushies, apparel, and much more. She even has a Youtube Channel! You typically see a lot of pastel colors in any Pusheen product. Pusheen also comes in many different forms, since her creators created different versions of her for nearly any type of person! I've seen her as a dragon, a mermaid, a unicorn. And sometimes, she'd be holding different types of food, like boba tea, popcorn, a bag of chips, a cookie, or even pizza!
Since Pusheen is such a popular and successful brand, I've found a little article about marketing lessons that we can learn from the brand. A few tips include having a cute character to sell, staying on top of current trends, staying consistent, and also having merchandise.
Competitor #3: Line Friends
Link: https://www.linefriends.com
Line Friends is a global character brand, created based on stickers, created Line app. They also have a wide range of products that are practical and adorable for home, office, and outdoors. Line Friends is known to have a variety of different character sub-brands, such as Brown & Friends, BT21, ROY6 and Brawl Stars. I chose this company because they're really popular and known for anyone who uses the LINE app. For anyone who is a fan of the famous Korean boy group, BTS, they would also recognize Line Friend's BT21 (side note: I adore BT21 and happen to be a K-Pop fan!).
Line Friends' market is aimed towards anyone who is interested in pop-culture, and the LINE App is a social networking app for ages 12+.
The visual style varies for this brand, since they have a variety of different characters. Most of their characters are creatures or animals. They use a lot of bold and bright colors. They have a cartoony style, but also have animations where their characters are 3D. Many of their products include plushies, keychains, pillows, phone cases, figurines, and so much more.
The company collaborates with other famous companies and people. As I've mentioned, they've collaborated with BTS, but they also collaborated with Supercell (a video game company), Netflix, Tencent, and Big Hit Entertainment. They even recently announced that they're collaborating with the Korean girl group, ITZY and even the Korean boy group, Treasure!
Synthesize
That's it, folks!
