- Specimen
- BestFriend 台南孔廟店
- Category
- Brand Strategy / Local Growth / Place Activation
- Location
- Tainan, Taiwan
- Collection Date
- 2012 / 10
- Collector
- Daco
- Role
- Founder / Brand Strategy / Visual Design / Community Activation
Project at a glance
This project began with local observation and content gathering, then expanded into maps, illustration, characters, publications, and physical experiences. By continually collecting material, building a visual language, and connecting touchpoints, I shaped scattered local stories into a recognisable and shareable whole. It is not a one-off design, but a view of how content and a brand gradually take root through accumulation.
How I help things grow
In October 2012, I opened a BestFriend branch in the Confucius Temple district of Tainan. The shop was not on a main street, but hidden inside a narrow alley where cars could not enter. In the beginning, weekly revenue was under NT$3,000.
I did not see this as a lack-of-market problem. The district already had strong weekend foot traffic. The real problem was simpler: people were nearby, but they were not entering the alley; the shop existed, but it was not being seen.
This made the case less about promotion alone, and more about how a place enters human movement, mental maps, and social sharing. In today’s language, it was both a customer journey problem and a wayfinding problem.
My strategy unfolded in stages: first help people arrive, then give them a reason to turn in, then give them something worth photographing and sharing, and finally extend single-shop growth into district atmosphere.
The first move was a hand-drawn map card of the district. It worked as both a practical guide and a brand insertion device, placing BestFriend into the story of the neighborhood.
While making the map, I visited nearby shop owners one by one and asked whether I could include them. This was not just research. It also built trust and positioned BestFriend as a participant in the district rather than an outsider.
The second move was a papier-mache brand character placed at the alley entrance, together with a clear sign pointing toward the shop. This solved the final 25 meters: not just where the shop was, but why someone would feel curious and comfortable enough to turn into the alley.
That wave produced visible business growth. I was not only creating foot traffic. I was creating the feeling that discovering this hidden shop was itself something cool to know and tell others about.
Later, once the business was more stable, I expanded the work from shop growth to district atmosphere. I created an “Alien Bulletin,” filled with mysterious text and fictional alien sightings around the neighborhood.
This was closer to content marketing, placemaking, and earned media than direct advertising. People followed the printed clues, compared scenes, and paid new attention to the district.
The final stage was a printed publication called “Weak News,” which blended short writing, poetry, and district offers. It helped turn one-off events into a sustained atmosphere.
This case taught me that many things that look like marketing problems are actually problems of human movement and behavior. Whether in physical space or digital space, the same principle holds: first understand the friction that stops people from acting, then design the path that makes action feel natural.