MOODY STEPS

Roopa Nagarajan, Brittany Le, Diana DeLeonEmmellia Mackay, Erika Casales

Sarah Elizondo, Wyatt Corder

INTRODUCTIONThe Moody Pedestrian Sky Bridge is a sleek, grand, and fitting landmark at the Dean Keeton/Guadalupe St. entrance to the University of Texas at Austin. The Moody College students, however, are seemingly uninterested in the Bridge. At first, the problem was obvious. Why fix what isn’t broken? The Dean Keeton crossing serves its purpose well to cross between the Belo Center (BMC) and the other Communication buildings, especially the Jesse H. Jones Communication Center (CMA).

Was it out of spite, then, for the amount of money Moody spent on the Bridge? Many stu-dents found the Bridge wasteful, especially with how relatively little it is used. However, after surveys and research, we found that most students were indifferent.

Instead, they simply do not have classes that require crossing directly from the CMA to the BMC. This problem is intensified when people have to climb stairs to get to the Bridge.

To get people crossing the Bridge, we would need to repurpose it. Rather than it serving as only transportation and a symbol of connectivity, we decided to rebrand the Moody Bridge as a destination.

BRANDINGCreating a brand that is unique is one of our main objectives in order to gather our crowd. We decided to use the original color scheme from The University of Texas but with a twist. A brighter orange is more eye-catching along with a sky blue color for our sky bridge. It’s simple and is creatively reflective of the original sleek bridge. For our logo we manipulated the bridge to repre-sent an M in bright orange, for Moody, in correlation with the Communications School.

The font is Myriad Pro for its ubiquity in Apple products, its clean and refined edges, and its readability as a sans-serif type-face.

The name of our brand is Moody Steps. Not only does this incorporate using the staircases in both the CMA and BMC, but it also steps Moody forward towards smooth connectivity and, combined with the rest of our minimalist design, streamlines foot traffic to across the Bridge.

MOODY STEPS

MOODY STEPS: THE INITIATIVE

OUR PLANWe are targeting primarily Moody College of Communications students and faculty, but our facilities and technology are available for use by the entire university.

To get people to use the bridge more we will do a combination of things for our initiative. We made an app called Moody Steps that rewards people with points which can be used for discounts and prizes for crossing the bridge. We also put benches and tables on the bridge to make it a cool and relaxing study and hangout space. We made some adjustments to the technology of the bridge by installing an interactive digital floor on the bridge and adding new lights to make the bridge have vibrant colors at night.

The app will drive kids to the bridge because they want to save money on eating and buying goods at local businesses. The benches and tables that will be placed on the bridge will make the bridge a destination for students, as it will be a great place to study, chat, eat and relax in a cool location. The interactive floor of the bridge will make walking across the bridge a fun and novel experience for traffic, especially because hav-ing a digital floor allows us to change the image each week. The colored lights that we will install onto the bridge will attract walkers at night, because of the vibrant and changing colors it will have.

Students and staff enjoy a hip place to work, meet up for some coffee with friends, and chat. That’s why the benches/tables with outlets will be a great add-on to the bridge in order to increase traffic. It has a great view and the kind of relaxing, modern atmosphere that Austinites love so much. The bridge lights will light up the night with many options like burnt orange in order to support our UT teams and colors for different holidays, and will interest and connect with students to check the bridge out. Students will also be attracted to the interactive floor because it will be more appealing than walking on a regular floor, and people will be intrigued to see how the floor reacts to their steps, and what images will be on it each day. The Moody Bridge is aesthetically pleasing to look at and has a great view. We constructed tables and bench-es along the bridge. Tables and benches will be formatted to be aligned on one side of the bridge for spa-cious leeway for passersby. These tables and benches will have outlets that can be stowed away concealed when the weather is bad. The interactive lights will be automatically programmed for easier maintenance.The interactive floor will be projected digitally on the floor of the bridge.

PART 1: MOODY STEPS - THE APPWe will make a Moody Steps app that rewards people that use the bridge and the stairs of the CMA and Belo. The app awards walkers with a set amount of points when you use the Bridge and stairs to the Bridge.

Our app will have a geo-fence that enables students to check-in automatically which promotes a more us-er-friendly process. Users that prefer a manual check-in will have that option as well (as seen in Part 2). Bridge check-ins give you one point each, the main stairs of the BMC give you 2, the CMA stairs give you 2, and the back staircase of the BMC gives you 3. Users are allowed to get points once every hour.

Certain days—which include holidays, random weekdays, and weekends—will provide a 20% point bonus. Stu-dents can use low amounts of points for discounts at local businesses and at the Co-op. However, you can save up your points for prizes such as Moody College of Communications T-shirts, water bottles and more. This app will feature a five-menu tab with easy and fast accessibility. Visually the tabs will be vertically formatted with the labels: Point Balance, Daily Specials, Referral Page with Friends, information pertaining to the Moody School of Communications, and a Help/FAQ/Contact tab.

We will partner with local businesses to give you discounts on goods and services. We are looking to partner with businesses around campus and the UT area in general. We would want to engage places such as Torchy’s Tacos, Snarf’s Sandwiches, Cafe Medici, the restaurants in DKR and other on-campus restaurants and more. We will also partner with the Co-Op to give discounts on UT clothing and gear. If people save up their points they can cash in their points for prizes at Cappy’s, the cafe located in Belo. Prizes will include Moody College of Communication apparel including t shirts, water bottles, pens, hoodies and more.

Discounts are great for any college student wants to save money, and our app allows them to get discounts and useful prizes for doing the easy task of crossing the bridge. The aspect of saving money and that the fact that they are supporting local businesses by going to places with discounts from the app will motivate students to start using the Bridge and stairs.

Since we are making the Moody Bridge a destination (Initiative Part 2), we do not want to only target Moody stu-dents. However, Moody students are our prime target audience, so selling and promoting Moody-specific mer-chandise along with the UT-general merchandise will enhance the Moody student’s experience with the Bridge.

PART 2.1: MOODY BRIDGE - A DESTINATIONTECHNOLOGY ADJUSTMENTS TO THE BRIDGE: We will be adding a digital interactive floor to the bridge. The floor will be a touch screen system that reacts to pressure. For example if the floor has a pond/water theme one day then your footsteps will make ripples in the pool. The floor will feature a different theme each week, such as a soccer field, jungle floors and more.

We will also be adding lights to the outside of the bridge. This will light up the bridge with different colors at night. The bridge will be lit in a burnt orange color during UT wins and events, and will also be lit for differ-ent seasons and holidays.

SOCIAL AREA FOR THE BRIDGE: We are going to put benches and tables on the bridge to make it a cool spot for studying, relaxing, eating and chatting with friends. We are going to have two tables and two benches, they will both be on the side facing Whitis Ave. This will give people using the furniture a nice view of campus. These tables will also include outlets for charging laptops and other devices, so students can study there for long periods of time without worrying about their devices running out of batttery. Outlets will be closable so they can be safe in inclement weather.

We’re making the Moody Bridge a place that people will actively seek out to use, not. Rather than the Bridge being a second crossing method, it now serves a purpose that the Dean Keeton/Whitis crosswalks do not provide.

The Bridge has a great view and the kind of relaxing, modern atmosphere that Austinites love so much.Lights will shine in the night with many options like burnt orange in order to support our UT teams (when the Tower is orange) and colors for different holidays. These will get students to notice the Bridge as an ac-tual landmark. Students will also be attracted to the interactive floor because it will be more appealing than walking on a regular floor, and people will be intrigued to see how the floor reacts to their steps, and what images will be on it each week. Making the experience on the Bridge fun will involve Bridge walkers emo-tionally connected and involved.

INTERACTIVE DIGITAL FLOOR

The floor will have pressure sensors, making the images interactive. For example, if the digital screen is showing a pond of fish, where you step will scatter the fish from that point. Similarly, the galaxy floor will make stars appear from your every footstep.

WHY IS THE BRIDGE ORANGE?

The Bridge will be lit orange whenever the UT Tower is lit orange. The lights can be coded for an experience that is fun and colorful, soft and subdued, or dark if desired. The lights will come on when the UT Tower lights are on, from dusk onwards. The white color of the Bridge would make it easy to light up.

PART 2.2: MOODY BRIDGE - A DESTINATION

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

GRAND OPENING EVENT WEEK

Creating effective promotional efforts is one of the most important elements in any new initiative. Flyers will allow us to achieve maximum reach and frequency from our students and faculty here at the Universi-ty. Social Media is one of the most opportunistic ways to deliver new and exciting news about each of our promotional efforts, including events. A sponsored event by our joint ventures will be announcing our grand opening of MoodySteps with food, free T-Shirts and keychains, and double the check-in points. Our press release gives us a more broad approach to reach everyone on campus.

The first week of our initiative, we will hold Moody Steps Week. This Grand Opening week-long event will be jam packed with tabling events, people handing out the print flyers, and one giant attention-grabbing sign: a hanging banner from the Moody Bridge. The hanging banner will be facing Whitis, i.e. viewable from the crosswalk.

On this Bridge this week will be tables of food, candy, and other snacks. In addition, people can get free prize merchandise and collectibles that will later be available with points. Introducing people to the Moody Steps initiative through such a fun, involved event will get people curious about the new wonders of the Bridge.

The hanging banner has a clear, simple, and branded design, so people will be able to understand it at a glance.

SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS & PROMOTION

We are going to make accounts on major social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These ac-counts will feature information about the new renovation of the bridge, daily specials for the app, reasons why the bridge is colored a certain way, posts encouraging students to use the outdoor seating/study areas and more. These accounts will keep people involved with the bridge and give people updates so members of the UT community will remember the features of the bridge, and will create a buzz and spread the news of the bridge through word of mouth.

A feature will include “What Color is the Bridge?” which will allow people easy access to quickly updated information about what color is shining over Dean Keeton that night.

PRINT FLYERS

The print flyers have an eye-catching color, a sky blue background for the Sky Bridge. These will be hung up around Moody, especially around the Dean Keeton/Whitis crosswalk. The QR code will direct people to download the Moody Steps app. The flyer also incorporates the logo/branding into the name.

COLLECTIBLES & MERCHANDISE

Students are known to love and appreciate anything that is free. We thought it would be an important pro-motional effort to encourage students and faculty to use the bridge with tangible items that complement our efforts. Items include T-shirts with our logo while sponsoring the app, keychains, and pins. We will be passing them out during our grand opening. This will allow us to have free ambassadors rock our items in effort to keep the bridge top-of-mind. People will continue to be reminded that the bridge is an upgraded option with our interactive lights, study area, and MoodyStep points.

This merchandise will be given out at both the Grand Opening event, as promotional items handed out at the Dean Keeton/Whitis crosswalk. As prizes without dates or event names, these remain relevant even after our Opening week is complete. They can also be given out as prizes for redeemed points.

College students love backpack or tote bag buttons, and a clean design will appeal to them. The keychain is a model of the bridge in logo-form, and we’ll also be producing a realistic model of the Bridge. These can be 3D-printed.

As a novelty item, the keychains will pique curiousity while re-maining small enough to hand out. Therefore, people will be will-ing to take one from our tabling event or actually purchase one with points they earn from walking the Moody Steps path.

The t-shirts will be worn by Moody Steps campus ambassadors, who will be handing out print flyers, col-lectibles, and running the Grand Opening event. The t-shirts will also be available as a prize for earned app points.

PRESS RELEASE

We are going to write a press release to be sent to campus news outlets. We will send the press release to Orange Magazine, Moody Monthly, and the Daily Texan. We are going to be sending the release out on the 18th so the outlets will have time to make an article for the app’s release and the start of the initiative the following week of April 24th.