6. WHAT IS ESCAPE THE SPACE?
WHAT ARE ESCAPE ROOMS?
Escape the Space is an escape room business that passionately
focuses on teamwork, relationships, and true engagement. The
experience is designed to test client’s problem solving skills and
teamwork abilities in certain situations where there is a sense of
urgency and pressure. Escape the Space offers an exciting and
engaging experience for everyone looking to push themselves,
their abilities, and local recreation.
Escape rooms are a thrilling new form of entertainment that are
gaining popularity throughout the United States. Locked in a room
with other participants, each team member must come together to
solve puzzles, find clues, and ultimately escape the room.
Escape the Space: 2015–2016
9. Although Escape the Space has successfully attracted attention and
plenty of business from the local community, it has yet to permeate the
extensive student population that comprises much of Athens, GA.
We aimed our efforts at reaching undergraduate and
graduate students that were seeking new activities to
fill their free time.
These students are interested in engaging, interactive experiences that
push their mental capabilities and put their problem solving skills to the
test. These students are looking to share experiences with those around
them and escape the normality of their everyday lives.
In order to reach these goals, we strived to achieve top of mind
awareness for students interested in trying new activities, increase
engagement on social media outlets, and make Escape the Space’s grand
re-opening a known event among Athens residents.
Our team created and executed a themed student night to better reach
the student body. Student night offered discounted tickets to students,
which addressed the concern of many students that prices might be
too high to try a new activity. By compiling a survey and sending it to
hundreds of students, we better understood our target market.
Escape the Space: 2015–2016
12. t
Few teams get social media
specialists, but even fewer get
locally acclaimed models! This
is Liz, our digital clutch who
dual-handedly maintained
multiple social profiles while
sipping bottomless martinis
with her hoppin’ momma! Yet
while dramatically increasing
our client’s online engagement
was noteworthy (percentages
and whatever), her free spirit
reminded the team that there
was more to life than work—
and the work was better for it.
Ace in the hole, fearless leader,
Queen E, etc.; meet Emmaline,
our account manager. We
literally would have never
spoken to our client if it wasn’t
for this woman. Is that not
enough for you!? Then consider
the fact that she kept a diverse
team in constant contact all
from the safety of the local
Terrapin Brewery. In a time
when individuals are more and
more preoccupied, the ability to
bring people together can make
all the difference.
If ever a classic hair metal ballad
need a subject of inspiration, it
would find it in our very own Cat
Satch. Cat Satch Fever anyone?
Forget it. Yet while other teams
were left wondering why time
seems to slow wherever she walks,
she was busy calculating exactly
how our extravagant goals were
being met. Listen, sometimes they
were not met, but her windless,
factual rationale invariably
convinced the team that some
ideas are best left as just that.
EMMALINE
CATHERINE
LIZ
13. Art Director. Demigod.
If you’ve ever had to post
something professional while
cool, mysterious while inviting,
and smart while dumb all at the
same time, you know just how
hard that can be. Take a look at
Joey, our copywriter. Behind a
face that expert writers might
deem, “holy sh@%, did you see
that glorious face? I quit my
awesome copywriting job now
to forever stare at that man’s
face”, is a glorious whirlwind of
all the perfect things we could
never think to say.
Or write.
Damn Daniel, back at again
with fresh creative strategies.
This is Maddie, the social
mahatma who knows what's
trending before the people who
made the trends even trended
it. It’s a shame she doesn’t just
trend those things before the
trend-setters trend them, but
then how would she discover
the trends she loves so much?
It’s a good thing, too, because
her enduring passion for what
is changing the ad game pushed
our creative executions further
than any narrow mind could
have imagined.
JOEY
MADDIE
KYLE
8
17. Company HistoryTwo years ago, while on vacation in Orlando, Athens natives Alicia
and Andrew Brasher took part in something that would soon
consume their lives. The Escape Room they took part in Florida then
inspired them to bring the experience to Athens, setting up their
first location at Chase Street Warehouses. They soon moved over to
the Bottleworks location and hit the ground solving. They started
working on puzzles immediately and locally sourced all the necessary
materials. The job became full time for the both of them and in just
four weeks Athens' “only real-life escape room” came to be. Both
Brashers have creative backgrounds in theater, music and painting.
The Brashers worked with youth ministry for a number of years in
Athens prior to starting Escape The Space. Their newest endeavour
has been moving out of Bottleworks to a bigger space on Hawthorne,
that now offers four rooms and provides the freedom to dream big
with the community they love so much.
21. SWAT ROOMYou and your team are the line of last
defense. A group of criminals has planted
a bomb in a downtown apartment
building and you have an hour until
detonation. Can you decipher the cryptic
messages in time to defuse the bomb and
save the day?
22. ESCAPE DETENTIONI hope putting thumbtacks on the teacher’s chair was worth
it because teacher-man has finally had it! You and your
prankster pals have been locked in detention until you can
solve his dastardly puzzle.
25. O’MALLEY’S PUB
You’ve always wanted to run your own restaurant
right? Well, here is your chance. The local food
critic is here and Chef O’Malley just walked out
on your first day of work! It’s up to you to lead
your kitchen through O’Malley’s indecipherable
recipes and save the restaurant.
27. Part game, part theater, part team-building exercise, escape rooms are
taking off around the world.
The number of permanent rooms worldwide has gone
from zero at the outset of 2010 to at least 2,800 today.
The concept was born in Japan, spread through Asia, then arrived in
the U.S. in 2012. For many escape rooms, corporate clients make up
50% of all business.
Escape Rooms are now also making their way into mainstream
entertainment. The studios behind Tom Cruise’s coming “Mission:
Impossible” film planned escape rooms at AMC Theaters allowing
them to become “agents” of their own. There have been many
extensions of escape room such as online puzzles and digital games.
The service extension opportunities are also gravitating toward
themed entertainment areas.
Many believe that escape rooms are going to start to see smaller
operators go out of business and the larger side making more revenue.
Some are moving into the franchise model as well.
Escape the Space: 2015–2016
29. INSPIRATION
The audience for the games is broad. Research by Scott Nicholson
found they had universal appeal, but a survey of 175 escape game
venues around the world found 37 percent of players were from
aged 21 or over. According to many escape room owners the biggest
market appears to be the millennials who are always out seeking
for alternative entertainment. Millennials are at the forefront of the
experience economy and escape games are in a position to capitalize
on this market. People are also looking for those memories that they
can experience and share with their friends.
RESEARCH METHODS
We created a survey to send out to one of Escape the Space’s key
target audiences, college students aged 18-25 years old. We focused
on this sector of the market because the owner’s felt that is where they
struggled the most in terms of engagement. The goal of our survey
was to gather more data to gage the level of awareness of college
students in the community of their business.
30. STRENGTHS
WEAKNESSES
Escape the Space brings a unique, fun and ever-changing
experience to people looking for a bonding experience with
friends or teams. They are the first escape room business in
Athens and on the earlier end of opening in the South. Past
customers adore the owners; our client is looking to highlight
their brand’s personality. Our client is also moving to a larger
venue to accommodate more customers at a time. As of now they
have great word of mouth from previous customers.
Our client is not very competitively priced compared to its direct
competitors in Athens. The escape room as entertainment is still
such a new concept that consumers may be hesitant to try it.
Our client is majorly run by three people trying to manage many
different aspects of the business especially with their big move,
this is challenging.
25
31. OPPORTUNITIES
THREATS
Escape the Space Athens can be one of the first businesses to
be a part of this new trend of escape room entertainment. The
owners are from Athens and support local Athens businesses
while other local businesses reciprocate. They are moving within
the upcoming month to a new, larger venue that holds up to 20
more people at a time which can increase business. They have
yet to explore many paid advertisement opportunities and still
have that as an option to take advantage of.
While they have been moving locations, overall sales decreased
this past month. Their new site is also moving them farther
away from the heavily student-populated downtown area of
Athens. There also is the threat of other similar businesses
coming to Athens as this trend expands.
37. BEAR
This 32 year old Athens
local has moved on from
the college affiliated scene.
He is looking for a more
unique experience at a
local business outside of
downtown. Bear is real
chill and has traveled to
more places than you can
solve a puzzle at.
38. SOPHIE
Sophie is a sophomore
at UGA studying marine
biology. She’s got a TON
of friends and is way cool,
therefore downtown isn’t
for her. She’s also strikingly
smart (you can tell by her
eyes), so she likes activities
that challenge her. The
fact that she hates losing
only increases the appeal
of win/loss percentages. In
the future Sophie will also
encourage Escape the Space
to make an underwater
room. They will laugh at
first, but then realize how
serious she is and do it so no
one gets hurt.
49. By investing the time to design
custom posts, we acheived our goal
of introducing an acceptable, unified
aesthetic while prompting more
engagement with followers.
50. TV SPOT
45
As a result of impressive increases in
sales, we figured a commercial might
not be too distant of an expense.
53. We also felt it necessary
to create a summary of
their brand guidelines for
future coherence. This 12
page guide explains every
aspect of their brand,
from logo and colors to
fonts and current designs.
54. For our media strategy, we began with conducting an online
survey analyzing the current target market of students within the
Athens community. From our research, we learned that price was
a huge factor for these students and less than 2% of the surveyors
had even tried an escape room before. After understanding that
our target market was for the most part unaware of the idea of an
escape room, let alone the availability in the Athens community,
we aimed to increase trial and awareness by offeri ng student
night, dispensing flyers on pizza boxes, and promoting ETS on
social media.
Social media was the main focus of our media
strategy, with a concentrated effort on increasing
engagement among our new target market of
millennials and college students.
Because our clients had already invested a lot of their energy into
making Facebook a great social media foundation for Escape the
Space, we chose to have a sole focus on Instagram and upping our
follower/following base in that area. We created puzzles to engage
the followers, graphics to announce the new escape rooms, and
the hashtag #MundaneMonday to give our client’s new follower
base a fresh idea for fun on a Monday. We took the initiative
of following not only UGA students, but other local Athens
businesses to show support. This ultimately resulted in a huge
success and our Instagram fan base has since increased heavily to
almost 150% and is continuing to do so.
Escape the Space: 2015–2016
57. 50
Problem
UGA students are generally unaware of and often confused by the
concept of escape rooms, and thus fill their free time with other
activities. While Escape the Space had been able to attract much
business from the local community, it has struggled to reach the
extensive student audience that comprises much of Athens, GA.
Our efforts were aimed at reaching college and graduate students
who were looking to expand their activity skill sets.
Strategy
Spread awareness of Escape the Space and the concept of escape
rooms through increased social media engagement by 30%. Using
our social media expertise, we engage the student population of
Athens, GA across a variety of media including: print, social media
(Facebook, Instagram), events, and out-of-home. Host promotional
Escape the Space events to build awareness and engagement among
students and Athens residents.
Impact
Relaunched ETS’s social platforms and increased Instagram following
by 150%, engagements per post by 68%, and overall engagement by
38%. Facebook received a 58% increase in reactions per post as well
as a 75% increase in reach, from around 1000 people to an average of
4000 in February.
58. April May June July Aug. Sept.
5K
10K
15K
20K
OVERALL SUCCESS
INSTAGRAM
• 68% increase in engagements per post
• And a 38% increase in overall engagements
9.3%
15.6% engagements per post
53
59. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb, Mar.
5K
10K
15K
20K
• September and October of 2015 were transition months from the old facility
• November 2015 shows revenue since the move and our team’s core executions
• 58% increase in reactions per post
• And a 75% increase in reach
26
63
core execution period
reactions per post
FACEBOOK
61. We want to leave to our client with the keys to engage
with students in the most direct way possible. In
order to achieve this, we created a list of fraternity
and sorority contacts for our client to speak at their
chapters about Escape the Space, since awareness with
our target was initially slim to none. As for our student
night initiative that we executed at the start of 2016,
in order to improve it further, we have planned to
turn that into discounted nights for not only students
but for different organizations around the Athens
community and UGA campus clubs as well. This will
help ETS become an advocate in the community and
promote business on slower nights. Lastly, we want
Escape the Space’s Instagram to have more fluency
throughout their posts, so we created a Pinterest
inspiration board. This includes graphic examples and
a color scheme that will spark ideas on how to make
the page look more consistent and integrated with
their brand’s theme.
FINAL MOVES
