1 PRETEND CITY

Pretend City Children’s Museum

Message Design Handout

Dr. Labelle

Chapman University

Whitney Slavin, Chris Damion, Victoria Sedgwick,

Mikaela Grumbach, and Amanda Page

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Step One: Planning and Strategy Development

Pretend City Children’s Museum is a unique, interconnected city designed for children to

“build better brains” through hands-on learning experiences, role playing, educational

experiences, and purposeful play (Pretend City, 2013). The Museum is open to infants up to the

age of 8, which allows for an emphasize in early childhood education and brain development

(2013). Pretend City uses research and theories such as social constructivism to support their

multi-dimensional educational philosophy (Derry, 1999; McMahon, 1997) Open 7 days a week,

the museum offers 17 interactive exhibits for children to explore and learn. Exhibits include

opportunities for children to learn about careers and how these various places function in the

community such as banks, city hall, construction, emergency services, grocery stores, health

centers, post offices and more (Pretend City, Exhibits, 2013). In addition to exploring jobs in the

community, Pretend City encourages cultural diversity offering specific events and opportunities

to engage in various cultures, hosting community events for health screenings, and informative

lectures for parents to ensure developmental checkups.

What is the need of Pretend City?

After working with Pretend City Museum, we believe they need to focus on encouraging

the entire family to visit the museum together. A large part of development in children is the

interactions between parents and the child. Pretend City allows parents to benchmark their

child’s growth and development and participation among both parents and/or guardians is

essential to healthy learning skills (Child Development Institute, 2015; Pretend City, 2013).

SWOT Analysis: Microenvironment

Strengths

● Resources : Large donors and donations to pool from. Donor’s such as Kaiser

Permanente, Ralphs Grocery, Wells Fargo, & other well known recognizable businesses

establish credibility and reliability. Also, Pretend City has plenty of volunteers that help

out the staff during their busiest days (Pretend City, 2013; Personal Interview, 2015).

● Service Delivery Capabilities : In order to utilize some of the support from donors, our

disruption of the messages would be channeled through Doctors, financial planners &

other groups invested in the healthy development and security of young generations.

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● Management Support : There are many different levels of staff that work at Pretend City

that would be thrilled to try and get as many parents with their children in the museum as

possible.

● Issue Priority : As part of the mission statement, a priority of the museum is to ensure

meaningful play. Just visiting the museum is not enough to build better skills in the

development of young children. The organization’s foremost priority is engaging parents

as well. Therefore, the museum would put the issue of wanting to increase the number of

parents and children that visit their museum would be a priority.

● Current Alliances & Partners : The organization has ample partners and alliances with

well known, credible companies in the Orange County Area.

o Donors to Maximize:

▪ Ralphs Grocery, Children & Families Commission, The Kennedy

Foundation, Pacific Life Foundation, Target Corporation, Crevier BMW,

The Boeing Company, The L.A. Times

o Corporate Partners to Maximize:

▪ AAA, Kaiser Permanente, Mars, Scholarshare , William Lyons Homes

● Past Performances : Pretend City has had large success in other campaigns they have

conducted.

o Good to Go From Head to Toe → A campaign implemented to increase the

awareness of educating families about the importance of regular developmental

checkups and engage parents in meaningful play with their children. Classes are

offered to parents and caretakers to support the development of important

movement, communication and emotions, social, & thinking and problems skills

(Pretend City, 2013).

o Family Fun & Wellness Fair → Free health screenings & check-ups. An annual

fair which serves over 2,000 children each year (Pretend City, 2013).

o Symposium → A workshop focused on adults, which gives guidance on

compassionate feeding of children to address obesity, picky eaters, and stress

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eating issues. A psychology driven & doctor conducted workshop focused on

feeding children (Pretend City, 2013).

Weaknesses

● Resources : They have an abundance of volunteers that don’t have much to do. They need

to expand their implementation of volunteers and supporters by allowing volunteers to do

more behind the scenes type of work.

● Service Delivery Capabilities: The sanitation of the museum and security within the

facility may become harder with increased foot traffic. Increased interaction of different

age groups within the facility is hard to keep at a minimum and will continue to be hard

to combat with more people visiting the museum on a daily basis. The whole museum is

indoors and some children might want to go outside to continue their learning and play.

After 1-2 visits, children have exhausted all exhibits and may become bored or

uninterested. The museum is somewhat disorganized, crowded, and lacks new play

equipment (Yelp, n.d).

SWOT Analysis: Macroenvironment

Opportunities

● Cultural Forces : In this type of southern California culture, many parents believe that

they need to interact with their children to help them grow. Pretend City has increased the

opportunity for parents to monitor their children’s development skills in a fun

environment. They have increased the awareness among the populous that children are

not receiving enough general check ups.

● Technological Forces : A major concern of parents today is the use of technology. Studies

have proven that early use of technology can stunt growth of social and interpersonal

skills. The Museum discourages the use of technology within the museum, and promotes

the use of social and interpersonal skills among children and adults (Pretend City, 2013).

● Demographic Forces : By encouraging parent involvement, Pretend City has the

opportunity to reach out to other demographics/schools and become more inclusive.

What can our target audience benefit from visiting the museum as a family?

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Paving a better future for your children by spending time with them, and helping them learn

(Child Development Institute, 2015).

● Encourages children to learn about jobs in the community as well as social and cultural

diversity within the city

● Encouraged to take children to an educational facility.

Threats

● Economic Forces : price of entry at Pretend City is fairly high and will be hard for those

in lower socioeconomic brackets

● External Publics : When looking for a family outing, target audience chooses less

educationally oriented outings, such as Disneyland, California Adventures & Knotts

Berry Farm. Other interactive experiences for children in Orange County that are free of

charge include:

○ The Ocean Institute, Kidseum

○ Stroller Brigade

○ Lego Travel Adventure

Intended Target Audience

Parents with children ages infant to 8 years old and current customers of Pretend City.

Step Two: Developing and Pretesting Concepts, Messages and Materials

Message

The goal of our message is to emphasize the importance of the whole family unit visiting Pretend

City together to further enhance their children’s developmental skills.

Slogan

“Watch them play, so you can help them learn”

Potential Pretest Information

● Survey given to elementary school parents asking about people’s familiarity with the

museum

● Survey that is emailed to current members

Three Potential Channels

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1. Radio Commercial

● Targeting parents and young children

2. Brochure

● Targeting family units; incorporate knowledge objectives and statistics

3. Facebook

● Targeting technologically savvy parents

● Knowledge Objectives

○ Statistics about how parents interacting with their own children benefits their

child’s growth

● Behavior Objectives

○ Encourage more parents to come to Pretend City with their children and to revisit

the museum

● Gain Frame

○ The advantages of visiting Pretend City for the parents and the benefits to the

development of their child

Theoretical basis for the messages:

1. Built - In Advantage (Brochure) (Lee & Kotler, 2011)

● Strengthening the family unit

● Children play with educational experience

● Non-for-profit, unlike other children’s activities

2. ELM Processing (Commercial) (Lee & Kotler, 2011; Gass & Seiter, 2011)

● Peripheral Route: Targeting children through Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, PBS by

showing the children that Pretend City is a fun and cool way to interact with their parents

and to learn to function in society through play.

● Central Route: Target parents by explaining the health benefits of interacting with their

children at Pretend City

3. Gain Frame & Positive Emotional Appeal (Facebook) (Lee & Kotler, 2011; Gass & Seiter,

2011)

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● Parents will gain a better understanding of where their children are at in their

learning development

● Families will be able to spend more time together, doing fun activities that their

children will remember forever

Step Three: Implementing the Program

Implementation

There will be a “kick off” Groupon for the first month of the new campaign. The

Groupon will offer a “Bring one parent, get one free,” type offer. It will be advertised on Pretend

City’s Facebook page, and also emailed out to all members as well as anyone who has visited

Pretend City in the past (Gass & Seiter, 2011).

The brochures will be placed near the checkout stands at Ralph’s, which is one of Pretend

City’s biggest donors. They will also be placed in the waiting rooms of local Pediatric offices,

daycare centers, elementary schools, preschools and toy stores.

The commercial will air on the radio (perfect opportunity because parents and kids often

listen to the radio together -- i.e. on the way to school) It will also air on television, on stations

such as PBS kids, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and ABC (Good Morning America). This

targets both parents and children. Children are very visual, and watching a commercial that

instills a positive emotional appeal will encourage children to ask their parents to take them

(Kim, 2001). Seeing a commercial during morning news shows will allow parents to become

aware of Pretend City and learn more about the statistics/evidence behind child development

(Gass & Seiter, 2011).

Potential Partners : school districts; PBS kids (implementing commercials locally)

Step Four: Assessing Effectiveness and Making Refinements

Evaluation

1. Groupon → evaluate success based on how many people bring in the groupon when

buying tickets to the museum; how many who people take the survey and say they heard

about Pretend City via Groupon

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2. Radio Commercial → number of people who are listening to the radio commercials

versus the number of people who go to the museum that week; how many who people

take the survey and say they heard about Pretend City via the radio commercial

3. Facebook → Likes, shares, comments, photo uploads, and tag posts; how many who

people take the survey and say they heard about Pretend City via the Facebook page

Type of Data Collection :

Qualitative Data (Lee & Kotler, 2011)

● In the survey that is administered to visitors, they will have a chance to give feedback and

comments about their experience at the museum

Quantitative Data (Lee & Kotler, 2011)

● Number of people who come to the museum and use the coupon from Groupon

● Number of likes, shares, comments and tag posts on Facebook on the Pretend City

Facebook page

● Number of people who are listening to the radio commercials commercials in relation to

the number of people who go to the museum that week

● Survey for visitors that fill out a questionnaire regarding how they heard about the

museum (via Facebook, groupon, or commercial), which also evaluates which channel

was most successful.

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References Child Development Institute. (2015). Playing With Your Child. Retrieved from

http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/play-work-of-children/pl5/

Derry, S. J. (1999). A Fish called peer learning: Searching for common themes. In A. M.

O'Donnell & A. King (Eds.).

Gass, O., & Seiter, J. (2011). What Constitutes Persuasion? In Persuasion, Social

Influence, and Compliance Gaining (4th ed., p. 29). Pearson Education.

Kim, B. (2001). Social Constructivism, From Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and

technology. University of Georgia. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.

Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lee, N.R & Kotler, P. (2011). Social Marketing: Influencing Behaviors for Good. London,

UK: Sage Publications, Inc.

McMahon, M. (1997). Social Constructivism and the World Wide Web - A Paradigm for

Learning. Paper presented at the ASCILITE conference. Perth, Australia.

Pretend City. (2013). Exhibits, Membership, Education, Good From Head to Toe, Support Us .

Retrieved from http://pretendcity.org

Yelp.(n.d). Pretend City Children’s Retrieved from

Museum.http://www.yelp.com/biz/pretend-city-childrens-museum-irvine