Abstract
Promoting tourism by attracting the interest of people to the local culture, particularly through consuming experiences of cultural products, is a current trend in urban competitiveness. Cultural products are popular instruments representing local culture. They translate messages, narrate memories and historical events, and establish an emotional connection with people. The present paper explores the possibility of using cultural products as a city marketing strategy for the former Tainan State Magistrate Residence, which can be integrated with other cultural zones to represent Tainan City. The Tainan City government registered it as a city-level historical heritage site and completed its restoration and reuse plan in 2000. However, no practical marketing strategy has been formulated to promote the site and to raise cultural awareness among both locals and tourists. The present study adopts an empirical case generated from an outing course: a one-day cultural learning tour involving 61 student participants in the former Tainan State Magistrate Residence. Many rich identifiable cultural features were derived from the experience of the participants, which were transformed into unique and irreplaceable cultural product ideations. The findings of the case study provide a clear understanding of the dynamic relationship among cultural products, city heritage, and city marketing, which strengthens the potential of cultural storytelling through the design of cultural products for city image promotion and urban regeneration. They provide practical designers, urban planners, and policy makers a view of the importance of cultural communication media through products.
Keywords
cultural product, storytelling marketing, historic heritage, cultural-product industries, design prototype testing
Citation
Chang, T., Chen, K., and Huang, K. (2012) Shaping a Case in Cultural Product Design for City Marketing: Product storytelling for the former Tainan State Magistrate, in Israsena, P., Tangsantikul, J. and Durling, D. (eds.), Research: Uncertainty Contradiction Value - DRS International Conference 2012, 1-4 July, Bangkok, Thailand. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2012/researchpapers/18
Shaping a Case in Cultural Product Design for City Marketing: Product storytelling for the former Tainan State Magistrate
Promoting tourism by attracting the interest of people to the local culture, particularly through consuming experiences of cultural products, is a current trend in urban competitiveness. Cultural products are popular instruments representing local culture. They translate messages, narrate memories and historical events, and establish an emotional connection with people. The present paper explores the possibility of using cultural products as a city marketing strategy for the former Tainan State Magistrate Residence, which can be integrated with other cultural zones to represent Tainan City. The Tainan City government registered it as a city-level historical heritage site and completed its restoration and reuse plan in 2000. However, no practical marketing strategy has been formulated to promote the site and to raise cultural awareness among both locals and tourists. The present study adopts an empirical case generated from an outing course: a one-day cultural learning tour involving 61 student participants in the former Tainan State Magistrate Residence. Many rich identifiable cultural features were derived from the experience of the participants, which were transformed into unique and irreplaceable cultural product ideations. The findings of the case study provide a clear understanding of the dynamic relationship among cultural products, city heritage, and city marketing, which strengthens the potential of cultural storytelling through the design of cultural products for city image promotion and urban regeneration. They provide practical designers, urban planners, and policy makers a view of the importance of cultural communication media through products.