Coney Island Fun Guide Case Study

Boosting the impact of a beloved landmark destination via branding, web design and community development.

Coney Island Fun Guide: The Challenge

The Coney Island Fun Guide is a brand created for the promotion of Coney Island, the coastal landmark in New York. It is administered by the Alliance for Coney Island, a community development nonprofit. Coney Island is a traditional summer destination for New Yorkers, with many attractions including a beach, boardwalk, rides, retail shops and restaurants. The Alliance wanted to modernize the Coney Island Fun Guide in order to boost visitor attendance and participation, which had been declining over the last few years. The Alliance felt the brand was outdated, and that the prior website didn’t offer enough information for visitors. As an additional challenge, the content in any tools we developed would need to be updated by interns and staff with very little technical knowledge.

Coney Island Fun Guide: The Solution

Branding Facelift

We updated the brand mark to have a more meaningful representation of what the destination is about. We kept the new branding image throughout the design of new season brochures, event posters and collateral. materials.

New Online Presence

We updated the Fun Guide website to include a wide variety of tools to make visitors better informed and more engaged. The new website reflected the new branding, with a modern image and mobile-responsive design.

Community Development

Sections for upcoming events, rides, promotions and vendor directories were included on the website. These new sections provided opportunities for the Alliance and the Coney Island vendors to foster engagement with the community of visitors.

Branding Facelift

The new Coney Island Fun Guide brand needed to be representative of the name, the destination and its attractions.

Coney Island Fun Guide: The New Logo

The new logo is simple yet powerful. Its main graphic symbols are three large colorful circles containing iconography representing a ferris wheel (rides), a beach, and a hot dog with a drink (dining). These are the quintessential elements of what Coney Island means to the community.

Season Brochures

We designed new trifold brochure templates that could be easily updated by the internal staff on a seasonal basis. The new season brochures carried the new branding and included the calendar of events, hours of operation, directions, etc.

Online Presence

As a major local tourist destination, Coney Island needed to promote its attractions and events using an online growth strategy centered around the Fun Guide website.

The New Website

The new Coney Island Fun Guide website we designed was brand-centric and visitor-focused. Next to the social media icons at the top of the header, a widget displayed the real-time local weather conditions. The bold new menu was designed to funnel visitors into key sections and activities.

The next section of the website (Explore) was designed to further guide visitors towards the main experiences and activities at Coney Island, leading them to online maps and directories. A calendar widget on the homepage listed the upcoming events, and was adjacent to an itinerary builder link.

This section of the new website was informational in nature. The “Get Here” section displayed large icons for visitors that needed transportation and parking directions. This was followed by an editable announcement section where staff could post and highlight any relevant and newsworthy notices.

The lower section of the new website included a partner gallery displaying the logos of select vendors and sponsors. The footer included functionalities such as a short menu, a widget with social media feeds, and a Newsletter sign up form. The branding elements were carried into the footer.

Community Development

We created strategic opportunities for the Coney Island Fun Guide and local vendors to engage visitors and communicate their offerings, events and activities.

Event Posters

We designed a series of posters that were used to promote upcoming events such as the 4th of July celebration on the beach, movie showings, etc. These posters were placed and distributed in public transit, retail locations, etc.

Event Calendar

We developed an editable online calendar section where the Alliance staff could post upcoming events throughout the season. The calendar had an e-commerce feature to sell tickets to special events and track capacity at the event venues.

Vendor Directory

A new vendor directory section of the website had categories for Rides and Attractions; Dining; and Shopping. Visitors could access the online directory for hours of operation, contact information, location, and promotions. An interactive map with location pins could be accessed from mobile phones.

The Results

After launching the new Coney Island Fun Guide branding, website and promotions, we helped the Alliance for Coney Island attain the following results:

500K +

Highest number of people to attend the 4th of July fireworks celebration since inception

$220K

One day sales record at Nathan’s Hot Dogs – Coney Island’s flagship restaurant

175K +

Record number of guests attended events hosted at Ford Amphitheater

5.2 MM

Record number of riders who took the subway to go to Coney Island

7,000 +

Record breaking seasonal attendance to “Flicks on the Beach” event series

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