PROJECT
HK PHIL
REDESIGN
MARKETING STRATEGY
AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE FOR HK PHIL
香港管弦乐团（港乐）是亚洲首屈一指的古典交响乐团。在当今消费者生活习惯变化迅速的大背景下，港乐与其他乐团一样，他们的受众群体出现了断层的现象，最终导致乐团经营的可持续性受到挑战。
为应对这一挑战，项目组针对港乐的营销策略及用户体验进行了重新的设计。我们的解决方案着力于提升社交互动性及观看体验从而提高本地千禧一代们对西洋古典乐的认知，让这份有着超过300年文化隗宝成为他们生活中的一部分。
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra commonly abbreviated as HK Phil, is recognized as Asia’s foremost classical orchestra. However, the presentation of this kind of music has remained largely unchanged for over 300 years is becoming an increasing challenge, as the lifestyles of its audiences and the way they consume culture has changed to drastically.
Base on the topic, the project team helped the client to redesign a series of marketing strategy, customer experience, and prototype that achieve to promote orchestra’s significant and relevance to the young generation. We named the design output as ‘Phil Fun’, it is designed to increase audiences’ appreciation of classical/orchestra music among the millennials, mainly focus on using social interactive seating experience.
Client: Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
Producing Year: 2017
Project Duration: 2.5 Month
Number of Team Member: 4 (Chinese X Indian)
DESIGN TASK
Redesign the marketing strategy, user experience and output prototype for HK Phil so that putting effort to enhance the engagement rates of millennials in Hong Kong.
Design Questions
[a] What are the audiences’ cognition about classical/orchestra?
[b] What is the connection between millennials and classical/orchestra?
[c] How do they decide on purchasing classical & orchestra music tickets/ related products/joining in the membership?
[d] Do social relationships affect their way of thinking about orchestra?
To Do
• The Music trends and lifestyles among millennials generation.
• The collected data from HK Phil previous marketing surveys.
• Information collected from interviewees.
CONTEXT UNDERSTANDING
ABOUT THE HKPHIL
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, commonly abbreviated as HK Phil, was first established in 1947 and became a professional orchestra in 1974 under the funding of the government.
The mission of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is to inspire and expand musical appreciation in Hong Kong and beyond, and to be a financially secure institution that brings distinction to the music world through its enriching performances and premier international standing.
ABOUT THE COMPETITORS
There are mainly three ways are utilized to promote the awareness of classical music by many orchestra groups:
1.Develop audiences through the production of nontraditional and enhanced concert experiences.
2.Developing audiences through education strategies designed to increase knowledge and understanding of classical music and sometimes of the orchestra itself.
3.Most Magic of Music orchestras sought to develop audiences through free concerts presented in one or more community locations.
ABOUT THE TRENDS
The Hong Kong orchestra industry in moderately attractive and is in its decline stage. Intense competition, a large number of substituted choices reduce overall industry attractiveness. The industry is affected by external factors such as political, legal, economic, sociocultural and modern trends. At the same time, because of the reduction in the sales volume of the compact discs, products innovation is desperately needed in the industry.
ABOUT THE MILLENNIALS (USER)
The term Millennials is usually considered to apply to individuals who reached adulthood around the turn of the 21st century. A Time magazine article placed the Millennials at 1980- 2000.
Millennials grew up in an electronics filled and increasingly online and socially-networked world. This group of people would be the most familiar with communications, media and digital technology. They would love to spend more than four hours on the internet per day, and 46% of them are usually browsing social media platforms when they are using their mobile phones.
About the purchase behavior, they has received the most marketing attention. Millennials are more likely to affected by their fellows.
RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
About the Interview
Understanding Millennials’ lifestyle and music preference.
Understanding the cognition of classical music means to HK Millennials.
Understanding Millennials’ needs/interests/pain of different type of users in concert experience.
Interviewee's Detail
17~35 year old
Average 30 mins per person living in HK
Have experience of attending concert or interested to attend a classical or orchestra music concert
As the result of our analysis, our users are divided into the four categories include Explorers, Experts, Social Butterfly, Old school. The horizontal axis instead of music preference of users, if users located on left means tend to like new orchestra experience, on the contrast, the users tend to like authentic orchestra music. For the vertical axis instead of motivation of users to go concert, if the users located on the top, they tend to have higher self-motived.
As the result of our analysis, our users are divided into the four categories include Explorers, Experts, Social Butterfly, Old school. The horizontal axis instead of music preference of users, if users located on left means tend to like new orchestra experience, on the contrast, the users tend to like authentic orchestra music. For the vertical axis instead of motivation of users to go concert, if the users located on the top, they tend to have higher self-motived.
Journey Map
This was one of the crucial tools we used to create our solution and to make sense of our research. It helped us identify problems at each stage of the customers journey. Once we mapped our personas to this map it gave us a further insight into what they may need as an experience.
We identified opportunities like a booking app, promotion, interactive elements etc at various stages of the map.
FINDINGS AND INSIGHTS
INSIGHT 01
Most of our target millenials in Hong Kong love social and interactive experience can increase their music appreciation of attending a concert.
INSIGHT 02
Most of our target millennial like to experience during the process.
SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT
For our final solution we decided to focus on the experience one gets while sitting on a chair during the concert and to modify it to suit millennials. We looked at experience seating, how to get there and the ways, different experiences can be created. We housed this experience under the name PHIL Fun.
We created 6 categories of seating within the concert hall- the expert kind supposed to give you a feeling of zen, the learning kind which evokes curiosity, the heartbeat seat for millennials who come here to create special occasions, priority seats for people who come with younger children, and memory seats which belong to people for the entire season of performances. We also kept the original kinds and hoped to sell them at a lower price to encourage people to buy them.
Further, we looked at the process of purchasing these seats. We wanted to move away from the typical way of booking these seats by selecting boring row numbers / alphabets. We looked at booking the experience of the seat instead.
Lastly, for promotion we created a concept of Musical chairs which would be an interactive installation outside of the hall and will immediately connect to the seating experience.
To house the entire concept we created PHIL FUN. It would hold the entire experience and would focus on first time users.
The identity stands for different elements coming together. It is renascent of musical instruments. The colors are light and represent the word FUN.
Colors
Visual Language
SEAT EXPERIENCE 01
This category of seating is known as the Curiosity Chair.
It is focused on a millennial experiencing orchestra for the first time. We understood the challenges which HK Philharmonic would have in revamping the concert hall, so we wanted to add instead of modifying a physical seat.
We added a few functional benefits to this seat
1 - Location in the hall
2 - Chat Network to speak to people in the same category of seating
3 - Hk Philharmonic Recommendations, which are the latest trends or interesting pieces in music.
4 - A workshop Coupon, which allows them to have an informal chat and QnA with a musician after the concert.
SEAT EXPERIENCE 02
This category of seating is known as the Zen Chair. This is the most expensive chair with the highest level of acoustic experience. It is focused on millenials who watch orchestra as an escape from their daily lives. They feel peace in the music they hear, because they understand it and this chair helps to achieve that peace. We understood the challenges which HK Philharmonic would have in revamping the concert hall, so we wanted to add instead of modifying a physical seat.
We added a few functional benefits to this seat
1 - Location in the hall, which allows one to get lost in the melodious acoustics of the hall.
2 - Chat Network to speak to people in the same category of seating.
SEAT EXPERIENCE 03
This category of seating is known as the Heartbeat Seat. This is a mid range price seat. It is focused on millennials who watch want to experience orchestra as a special occasion. The high level of couples on dates at their current orchestral performances gave rise to this seat. We understood the challenges which HK Philharmonic would have in revamping the concert hall, so we wanted to add instead of modifying a physical seat.
We added a few functional benefits to this seat
1 - Location in the hall, which allows one to get cozy and have a good night
2 - Access to the bar and snack counter located in the building.
SEAT EXPERIENCE 04
Based on the current orchestral members, we saw there is a high number which books the same seat for the entire season. The memory seat looks at exactly its name, creating a memory for the full season.
It highly values the location in the hall, and is highly customizable by including a sticker or some sort of identity of the owner.
SEAT EXPERIENCE 05
For a millennial, seeing the name best sellers would be an easy choice to make due to his lack of knowledge. These chairs are in the lowest price range.
They maybe offered for free by HK Phil in some instances.
SEAT EXPERIENCE 06
For a millennial moms or parents, sometimes the responsibility of the child comes first. Through our initial research and journey map we realized a lot of millennial parents need to leave the hall continuously for bathroom breaks for their children.
These seats are located right near the exit doors and provide an easy way to leave. They look at making the experience of orchestra more comfortable for these parents.
How do the User reach the seat experience?
We created a additional feature of booking these experiences. This feature is to be added to the current ticketing system or to the HK Phil website or app. For the purpose of illustrating the process, we have assumed it to be an add on to the current app.
Therefore the content and the lead to the seating chairs has been developed using the existing data on the HK Phil site.
User Interface Wireframe
MARKETING STRATEGY
In order to break the barrier between orchestra music and the general public, the Philfun marketing campaign attempt to guide the millennial from public space to the concert hall. For the outdoor marketing campaign, an interactive musical chair is designed for attracting millennial in public space. The location of the outdoor marketing campaign can be located in the place where has a number of millennial pass by. For instance, this kind of interactive installation be placed in the campus and shopping mall. As the installation is not only a advertisement, but also a place that allow people to sit there and relax, it would be more effective for attracting those people without rush.
K11 is one of the most appropriate place for these outdoor marketing campaign. As this shopping mall is one of the landmark for many young people in Hong Kong, also the mall’s subject matter which emphasizes culture and art that can gather a bunch of educated youth to visit. For this kind of youth, they are more easier to accept different form of art than others. The right place is believed to help the marketing campaign to exercise its influence as much as possible.
How It Works
On contact with the chair, a signal is sent to an arduino. The arduino then interprets this signal and sends back the signal to start playing a classical music soundtrack. We also explored the possibility of adding some sort of interactive lights to the same installation.
The Advantages of this Interactive Installation
It brings classical music to a public space, and starts forming a connection between classical music and seats. This then links to the seating experience we have created within the concert hall in a subtle yet obvious manner.
Lottery
This promotional strategy was created from HK Phils point of view. We believed that a lot of people who come to try orchestra tend to book the cheapest seats first. Through this lottery promotion we can ensure that the best seats which are still left unoccupied are filled up.
To ensure that this strategy will be effective, we will only make the lottery tickets available for a limited time at the time of collection of the consumers actual ticket. It will be at an additional nominal price and will be pre planned based on the number of unfilled seats.
Concert Hall Network
We have tried to create a network within the hall using the medium of seats. The users in a particular seating category can connect to others in the same category and discuss the music which is playing. The chat style is almost like twitter, where the user can talk in a maximum of 140 characters.
The login to the chat is through a QR code located on the chair. This chat network brings another level of experience to the seating, as the persons name remains anonymous. Only the seat numbers show up in the chat. This pushes the users to conenct after the concert in actuality.
Story Board
