Activate the Chance to Cooperate, CYCU Develop Marketing Strategies for Person with Disabilities
[Reporter Hsu Nai-Yi/News of Taoyuan] Taoyuan Nursing Home is the entity dedicated to sheltering the intellectual disability. The quilt workshop affiliated to it inherited the know-how for “making quilt” taught by the founder, Li Lin-Shu, and promoted the charity under the slogan “one piece of quilt, double charity and triple heartwarming” to add the value of charity by procurement of the charity quilt and benefit the residents of the Nursing Home and service recipients. Professor Chang Tao-Pen of CYCU Department of Commercial Design led the master program students to plan the marketing strategies and commodity design for the quilt workshop affiliated to Taoyuan Nursing Home. Based on the theme “Slowly Creeps the Snail”, they planned the merchandising, limited product edition for fund raising, quilt workshop brand and commodity packaging design to construct the entire marketing strategies.
The fund raised by the only quilt workshop which is managed by the person with disabilities group throughout Taiwan for the Nursing Home is nothing but a drop in the bucket, given the low profit and no abuse of charity. The insufficient fund is a common question to be dealt with by all domestic nursing homes. As the Nursing Home desired to have the products made by the workshop marketable in the general consumption market, the chance to cooperate was activated accordingly.
By probing into questions, CYCU Department of Commercial Design group tried to propose solutions from the point of view of design to upgrade the students’ professional ability and fulfill the social responsibility as a designer. The bottleneck suffered by the quilt workshop affiliated to Taoyuan Nursing Home in the process of development gave the group a chance and challenge for practicing. The group probed into such issues as domestic policies for the persons with disabilities, characteristic sheltered workshop, and domestic quilt market, to construct the marketing blueprint for the quilt workshop step by step.
The student, Tsui Ping, found that the embracing pillow was the best sale of the quilt workshop and, therefore, planned the characteristic pillow sets claiming “DIY of embracing pillow” , and combined the assistive devices provided by the Nursing Home to its residents for production of their own embracing pillows and the concept about customization, in order to enable consumers to create the pictures they desired on the embracing pillows by DIY. The student, Li Chiang-Ni, re-adapted the existing packaging style with her creative idea by integrating the image of snail with the concept about sustainable design. Designer Huang Kuo-Chou applied the elements and color of the aboriginals’ painting to the identity, packaging and commodity design of the quilt workshop. His logo matched market trends and demonstrated the uniqueness of Nursing Home’s students and, therefore, found the apparent brand positioning and base for fair brand communication. The student, Ho Jui-Chia, developed the identity design based on the image of snail. The central heart covered by three pieces of quilt symbolized the “Full of Warm Love” wound in the form similar to the number “9”, reflecting the quilt workshop’s sustainable development.
Like the Nursing Home’s residents, the quilt workshop developed slowly and painstakingly. With the assistance from CYCU Department of Commercial Design master program students’ group, the workshop called on the public to stay with the persons with disabilities to help the workshop and Nursing Home develop better, like a snail creeping slowly to a better future.
