Cape Shark Social Media

Overview

Cape Shark, a small apparel business on the South Shore of Massachusetts founded by a couple with expertise in business and fashion, offers versatile apparel in a diverse color palette. While personable, the brand needed a stronger online presence.

The Cape Shark Holiday Apparel Launch project aimed to increase visibility for a specific product line within the competitive holiday market. This was achieved through brand research, a SWOT analysis, and competitor analysis to identify enhancement opportunities. The design solution integrated holiday-inspired colors while maintaining Cape Shark's established brand identity.

Problem Statement

Cape Shark needed to increase visibility and sales of their new holiday apparel line within the highly competitive holiday market, while maintaining brand consistency and appealing to their target audience.

Key Challenges:

  • Remain consistent with pre-existing branding and maintain balance with a holiday theme 

  • Products are the most prominent aspect of the graphics 

  • The campaign needs to be accessible to pre-existing customers who will recognize the brand as well as new ones 

  • Becoming accessible and consistent on all formats (email, Instagram, Facebook)

Design Process

1. Client and Branding Research 

The project began with qualitative research to understand the brand’s visuals and their online persona. To gain insight, I gathered visual examples from all of their different forms of media. My group and I also produced a SWOT analysis of the brand to get an idea of where we needed improvement.

Demographics:

Age: Primarily young adults (18-35)

Gender: Predominantly female, but also appealing to a growing male audience interested in sustainable fashion

Interests:

-Fashion and trends

-Sustainability and eco-consciousness

-Social media and online culture

-Active and outdoor lifestyle

Values:

-Authenticity and individuality

-Social responsibility and ethical consumption

-Self-expression through fashion

2. Ideation 

After analyzing the brand, we collected the Holiday Campaign specific color scheme, our social media plan, and inspiration so we can maintain the continuity across the platforms. 

 Key Design Considerations:

  • Consistency V. Festivity: The visuals needed to maintain key branding identity while adding new holiday inspired aspects to the socials. We needed to keep the visuals clean and recognizable. 

  • Color Scheme: Since the brand already used red in minor aspects with their blues, we wanted that to be more of an emphasis 

  • Platform Awareness:  Every platform has a different audience that appeals to different things. We had to make sure that we remained consistent in design but also catered to the demographic that uses the platforms we designed for.

    3. Critique and Feedback

    With a solid visual for each platform, we sent them out for feedback from colleagues. With that, we made some adjustments to their notes. 

    Key Enhancements Based on Feedback:

    • Increased Readability: There were issues with color choices and sizing when visuals were applied to a social media format. So we opted for brighter lettering and darker backgrounds and upping the type size for the body texts. 

    • Enhanced Product Visualization:We adjusted the sizing and proportion of product presentation mostly in the email blasts. They seemed to get lost with holiday graphics.

Final Solution

The Cape Shark Holiday Campaign provides a festive yet brand-fitting experience, that keeps the brand relevant with the holidays and exposes their new apparel line.

Core Features:

  • Catering  to different platforms, by knowing our demographic we could adjust  to what responds best on each one

  • Timely and festive promotional content, maintains the relevance of the brand while focusing of the newest products 

By focusing on brand identity, media demographics, and promotional awareness, the campaign provides a festive and fun way to engage with new and old customers while exposing the newest deals and products.

Reflection and Next Steps

The design process was iterative, with each phase building upon the previous one. The final solution was deemed successful in providing a festive and brand-fitting experience. The iterative process itself shows promise for continued development, emphasizing the value of feedback and refinement. If I were to refine this project further, I would:

  • Near Term: Analyze campaign performance data to measure the success of the holiday campaign.

  • Short Term: Refine social media strategies based on the performance data and feedback. Develop content calendars and plan future campaigns.. Explore influencer partnerships and user-generated content initiatives.

  • Long Term: Expand the brand's presence to other platforms (e.g., YouTube) to diversify their online presence.. Develop a comprehensive social media style guide to ensure consistent branding across all platforms. Perhaps Implement a new phase of the brand’s identity.

Key takeaways:

  • Balancing brand consistency with campaign-specific themes.

  • Thorough research and analysis of the brand and target audience.

  • Iterative design processes with feedback and refinement.

  • Platform-specific design considerations.

The learnings highlight the importance of a user-centered design approach, emphasizing brand identity, audience understanding, and iterative development in creating effective social media campaigns.