How Do You Create a Brand for a Unique Place That Houses More Than 150+ Other Brands?

Background

The SOMA StrEAT Food Park is the first permanent space in San Francisco that hosts a daily rotating lineup of food trucks for lunch and dinner. They’ve taken the food truck meet-up to an exciting new level by adding themed covered seating areas like their “Barn” and “The Bus”. The park also features their permanent beer/wine truck, TV screens, Wifi, a sound system, and midway games.

SOMA StrEAT Food Park came to Plinth because they wanted a new website that would be easy for them to update. They ended up getting a new brand, a new voice, as well as a website that represented their true selves.

Objectives

Build a website that was easy to update and optimized for mobile users.
Make SOMA StrEAT Food Park stand out from the competition.

Strategy

Re-position the SOMA StrEAT Food Park as an enterainment destination.
Develop a unique verbal identity
Use custom illustrations to signal the new positioning and verbal identity

OUT WITH THE OLD

When they started first opened, the SOMA StrEAT Food Park hired a remote web developer to make their website. In the end, the developer became increasingly difficult to communicate with and it made updating the website a long and frustrating process.

The original site was static, strictly informational, hard to read, and failed to convey what the SOMA StrEAT Food Park was all about. We advised that re-designing their website was the perfect opportunity to create a brand that truly reflected who they were.

A Culinary Carnival and Urban Playground

The SOMA StrEAT Food Park is so much more than just food and the brand needed to embody that. Food trucks with inventive treats, karaoke nights, watching sports together, whimsy seating areas and midway games made people go home with more than food, they went home with treasured memories.

We wanted the park to be considered as one of the places when where people deciding on what to DO, not just where to EAT.

Marco Jastillana, Brand Strategist, Plinth

We re-positioned the SOMA StrEAT Food Park as a complete ENTERTAINMENT option. We wanted the park to be considered as one of the places when deciding on what to DO, not just where to EAT. We named this new position, the Culinary Carnival and Urban Playground.

Every brand needs a voice persona that embodies all it’s elements. We named the SOMA StrEAT Food Park’s new voice the Ringleader. We took inspiration from Willy Wonka, the genie in Disney’s Aladdin, and the ringmaster in Tim Burton’s movie Big Fish. The Ringleader is a warm, fun, guide to a world where possibilities are endless and magic still exists.

EXTREME SITE MAKEOVER

We built the new website so that it would be easy for the SOMA StrEAT Food Park to update and showcase the new brand direction that truly reflects the festive, dynamic nature of the park.

We art directed and added hand drawn illustrations (with the talented Jayde Fish) of whimsical characters to convey the fun and the uniqueness of the great times the park provides. We added a video featuring footage from the park’s events and food to showcase what a dynamic, wondrous place the park truly is. The old site was more static and informational.

FUNCTION AS WELL AS FORM

The new website was responsive and optimized for mobile. The old website listed the twitter handles of the trucks that were going to be there that day which was difficult to read. To make it easier for people to see which trucks were appearing on their mobile devices, we used the trucks’ logos. We helped streamline the booking process by creating pages for each unique space with information, photos, suggestions for use and a form to inquire about booking.

UPDATING YOUR WEBSITE IS THE PERFECT TIME TO MAKE SURE YOUR BRAND PROVIDES YOU WITH A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.
ARE YOU READY TO MAKE YOUR BRAND AND WEBSITE WORK FOR YOU?

LET'S TALK