By Jorge Casuso
September 1, 2009 -- If there's a California street you'd think wouldn't need branding, it's the Third Street Promenade. The three-block stretch of shops, eateries, movie theaters and street performers draws some 10 million visitors a year, many from around the world.
But as it marks its 20th anniversary next month, the Promenade -- and the streets that make up Downtown's core -- will begin getting an image makeover that will shape how the popular strip is perceived over the next quarter century.
To come up with a new branding strategy, the Bayside District Corporation, which runs the Downtown, recently hired the marketing firm Shook Kelley, which specializes in "placemaking."
"Places have to be about change," Kevin Kelley, one of the company's principals, told the Bayside District Board last week. "They constantly have to be doing something different."
An architect, Kelley is big on the physical attributes that make an environment different from all others and serves as the stage for the human drama.
Visitors should know they are entering a special space, what Kelley calls the "threshold experience," and, ideally, come out different after having been there.
"When do I know I'm here? Does it happen with a bang, or does it happen gradually? Do you come out different?
"We look at how people perceive their place," Kelley said. "If I go through all the trouble to come to Santa Monica, what's the payoff?"
Kelley also is interested in "how capitalism and community can meet," making the Promenade, which is a public street with private stakeholders, an ideal testing ground.
Much of the research Shook Kelley will conduct will be studying how people behave in the environment called the Promenade. To do this, the company will bring in its cultural anthropologist.
"We're more interested in what people do, not what they say," Kelley said.
After researching grocery store lines and DMV offices, Kelley and his staff have come to a clear conclusion about "queuing behavior": People can't stand waiting in line.
"We start to become irritated," Kelley said. "We can make that line go as fast as we can, but it's not enough. That's not going to make the stress go down. What does is giving them something, a way to make the experience worth the trouble."
And this can be applied to the Promenade. Take parking.
Before Kelley's presentation, City staff presented its parking plan to accommodate the huge crowds expected when the pier stages it's 100th anniversary celebration September 9, featuring the first large-scaled fireworks spectacular in 18 years.
The City's parking officials had no plans to entertain the motorists stuck in the anticipated exit lines at the Downtown public parking structures, and they planned to collect the money as visitors exited the elevators to return to their cars, or at the exit booth.
That, Kelley said, was the wrong way to go. Charge people when they come in, when they're anticipating having a great time, he told the staff. If they're disappointed by the experience and then have to fork over the money, chances are they won't want to return.
You have to keep them coming back, Kelley said, and that's where branding comes in.
"Do I trust the place, and what do I trust it for? It's very difficult to fix a perception. Do a gesture, something you will never forget.
"There's probably nothing more important than branding," he told the board. "The soul of an entity is really its brand."
