「One Base Vanke Sports Community」project, to create a sports community with 10 sports community brands

We explore the new joy of sports together.

Project Background: Vanke decided to build a sports-themed park in the centre of Shenzhen to improve a better interaction between the Vanke brand and the younger demographic. Shenzhen already has 1206 parks and a large number of sports facilities, the core challenge of this project was to create a sports park that would provide differentiated value and lifestyles to young people.


KAI was invited to work on this project to provide a solution for product innovation and brand creation in a model of ‘strategic construction + experience design.’

 

Our work contents: research and insight; product innovation model; experience design; resource linkage; brand story; case name; Vi design; operational strategy.

 

 

From 'Opportunity Insights' 

to 'innovation transformation



Through visiting sports parks in Shenzhen and Shanghai, we discovered that public sports facilities in cities are not used very often. Especially for young people who are chasing for something new. The reason is that most of sports facilityies lack of creative ways to play and create new content, which makes it difficult to create a sustainable attraction for unchanging facilities.

This also means that if we want the urban facilities to be a real part of people's lives, new operating models need to be explored to create the possibility of its continued growth.


To further understand needs and expectations of urban sports youth, we chosed 10 representative youth sports community owners to do interviews in Shenzhen.




It is a co-creation process through of communicating with these community leaders, who have extensive experiences in running communities, which provided us the key inspiration ---

 

l For the youth group, sports is a social form

The passion for sports is not only about exercise or competition, but also about making friends with like-minded people through a sport activity. Members of youth communities are willing to initiate and participate in events and activities in cities even nation in order to meet and get to know each other in the process.

 

l The value of the project is the opportunity to create a diverse and inclusive communication platform 

Although skateboarding, cycling and other sports are gaining more and more attention among young people, these community events are still squeezed in urban spaces, and many organisers mention the difficulty of finding ideal venues for their events. On the other hand, apart from intra-circle communication, people are also looking forward to more possibilities for crossover and interaction between different sporting groups. The opportunity for the product is to respond to this situation and expectation by creating a platform where people can get together better.


l More possibilities for communication, based on the co-creation and sharing of life

The love of sports is also influencing the cultural and perchase preferences of these young people, at the mean time they have created a representative lifestyles. This also inspires us that the project can be not only a place for people to exercise together, but also a base for young people who love sports to create and share the joy of life together and better integrate into the daily life.

 

Core insight


For young people who love sports, what the city currently lacks most is not a facility to paly sports, but a platform for communication and a platform for sharing around youth sports culture.


Innovative shift

 

From a sports park with a focus on venues and facilities, to a 'youth sports community' with a focus on sports lifestyle and youth community culture.

 

 

 

「Product Experience Design」

 in a model of Youth Sports Community




The transformation from a 'sports park' to a 'youth sports community' is based on two core aspects of reshaping product experience 

1/ We activate sports venues to continuously create content and link young people who love sports through inviting various youth sports communities to join in.

 

2/ Through the introduction of commercial and service facilities, a more completed form of youth sports lifestyle is formed, expanding from a sports venue to a living and social space for sports youth.


As a result, we have built a product model of "youth sports community", which consists of "sports venue + community operation + commercial and service facilities".



Based on the model, through previewing the product experience and fully responding to the needs of the community, we completed the planning of the venues and the core scenarios of the three types of communities -

 


[Community Centre] The offline operation centre of the community is also the core showcase of the community culture, as the first stop in the community to lead people to understand everything about the community.

  [Social leisure zone]A social gathering place with a casual atmosphere, with a mix of food and beverage, retail and others to provide a place for people to meet and celebrate after sports.

 

 

 [Community Hubs]The container space will be used to form a hub of activity and culture for each community, and will be led by community leaders. (The running and cycling stations are developed by Vanke and the communities as outreach urban activity hubs.)

 

 

Community Operation Strategy

Based on community co-creation





Based on the model of community co-creation by community leaders, we have developed three core community operation strategies to maximise the value of the community as a platform and to promote community self-identification.

 

   01/ 

Building a long-effective 

Co-creation mechanism

 

To establish a platform for continuous co-creation of content with the community, through different depths of content co-creation and complementary resources, weekly/monthly/quarterly content is laid out in an orderly manner to form a long-term and sustainable community reach traction.

 

Weekly content - each community will run regular courses/activities, with the community acting as a centralised promotion and booking platform.

 

Monthly content - community-led performances/parties/workshops, with the community providing resources to support them.

 

Quarterly content - Quarterly community themed day is focusing on a youth movement, with Vanke leading and linking external resources to co-create with the community.

 

   02/

Establish an online 

Community Platform

 

The One Base Online public official Wechat account will be established as the community's online voice, as well as an online sharing community with independent media value to continuously explore and share the youth culture, and an annual One Base magazine with IP attributes will be launched to form a continuous precipitation and fermentation of the culture represented by the brand.

 

   03/

Creating a community

Content IP

 

The event is based on skateboarding, streetball, Frisbee, street dance, cycling, graffiti, electro music, street food and other love themes, which creates fun events, exhibitions, workshops, markets and other forms of experience to build IP content to promote brand identity.

 

 

 

Sports Community

"Brand System construction"




Based on the new product form and operation model, a sports community brand was born - we named it "One Base Vanke Sports Community", completed the logo and VI design, and proposed the brand slogan "One Base, One Beat", we were hoping that it would become a place where young sports lovers can meet, share, and enjoy sports.


 

 

The "One Base Vanke Sports Community" completed and opened by the end of 2021, and various communities have started to move in to carry out activities. Thanks to the trust and support from the Vanke team, the passionate commitment of the various sports communities, and the co-creation of the project design team. We have been able to work together to promote a new urban sports lifestyle through the creation of a new brand.

 

Community presentation





The above images are copyrighted by Vanke Sports Community Project

 

 

Community Activities




The above images are copyrighted by the Vanke Sports Community Project

 

 Finally, we hope that [One Base Vanke Sports Community] will grow with the young people of the city, and you will come here to discover and explore the new fun of sports.