Museum Camp

Del Mar Cinema and Civic Pride in Santa Cruz

Team Members

James Heaton, Ebony McKinney, Becca Lynch, Elise Granta & Lisa Niedermeyer

What was your hypothesis?

Participating in a film experience at Del Mar increases civic pride for local Santa Cruzians.

What indicator did you measure?

Sharing of positive personal narratives related to Del Mar film experience.

How did you measure it?

We decided to use multiple data collection methods.

1. Long Form Persona Interviews with 2 locals (1 hr each). Asked interview subject to model a close friend as a means to uncover deeper and more authentic emotional responses.

2. Observe with participating. We listened (eaves dropped) to Del Mar audience members for conversations including key words. Documented the number of times the keyword is used. Spread out as a team. Listen/document in lobby, bathroom, line, previews, during screening

• Del Mar
• Here
• Santa Cruz
• Town
• First Friday
• Midnight Screenings

3. Attract narratives by wearing a “social bridgy” visual prompt. Bright pink buttons that said “I’m new here, tell me about Del Mar”.

4. In person short survey question interviews conducted in and around the cinema.

What did you learn?

Our hypothesis was strongly indicated in the small sampling of narrative collection. Not conclusive but encouraging enough to garner more research. The local on our team, Elise, was relieved and inspired.

Learning by failure: Our experiment with wearing hot pink buttons that said “I’m new, tell me about the Del Mar” was not successful. We thought folks would be more likely to engage in a casual conversation with a friendly non-intrusive visual prompt. This worked if we already had a casual relationship with a local (including a 10 year girl at the museum who was happy to share her story about Del Mar), but strangers (even business cashiers) generally did not engage in the prompt. We ended up with 3 hypothesis of why it was not successful

1. People see the button as a marketing tool. We work for Del Mar.
2. The visual is not disruptive enough people didn’t really see and register it
3. The question is a deeper question. 3rd into a conversation, rather than the first.

Alternate idea was to ask directions to the Del Mar theater and start a conversation around being new and pull a narrative from the person.

Any surprises?

Out of a small samples size (10 interviews) we discovered a narrative that involved a couple driving from the suburbs to park in downtown Santa Cruz and come to the cinema every Friday. We had originally wanted to measure how far people come to the Del Mar as a factor in their value for the experience and decided to throw it out (who would do that?). We were surprised that this actually could be a factor.