Komeeda, a History
Have you ever heard someone describe life as a winding road?
That’s Komeeda, and I loved this project for that very reason.
The company began as a one-man operation in 2013, with the founder putting together intimate dinners in local restaurants for friends. The concept grew, transforming into organizing pop-up food events for strangers. It continued to evolve and shift towards the tech realm, launching a ticketing platform for restaurants and chefs to host their own events.
When I came on board, we were on track to rework the entire platform so we could relaunch with a more finessed product. We had a game plan to build on top of that product over time, with a vision of releasing powerful software restaurants could use to combine all of their online operations into one platform. My marketing efforts revolved around the product we were developing, trying to hype our audience for what was in the works.
Then COVID hit, turning the restaurant industry on its head and completely gutting the events market.
We had to change gears, and quickly.
Crisis Mode.
We released a temporary product, a website acting as a portal for food lovers to find local, independent restaurants still open during the pandemic and connect with their online ordering services.
But, we hit a snag.
Our audience did not want to use what we had made. My marketing brain kicked in and I went into test and optimization mode. I reworked the way our individual restaurant pages were formatted to test if that was the issue. It wasn’t — the website itself turned out to be not so valuable for our users.
Well…what would we do now?
Image above: the landing page for the new site.
Image to the left: A snippet of one of the individual restaurant pages I had reworked to be more user-friendly.
A New Plan.
We needed a new direction. I had to take a step back to evaluate our current situation and what we had going for us.
We had two very distinct audiences — consumers and businesses. Our consumer audience knew us for the events we organized in the past. Our business audience knew us for the ticketing platform. The problem: we were no longer relevant on either front. Disengaged audiences with no viable product to drive them to meant a drastic change would be coming, it was just a matter of figuring out where and how.
Then the storm of social outcry over racial injustice came. This, it turned out, could be our saving grace. The Komeeda brand was founded on building community and being political; we could lean into that even further.
The Ever-Winding Road.
When I first joined the team before the pandemic hit, I had introduced a blog for the company to establish our brand as thought-leaders in the industry. Along the way, the founder had also driven us to start hosting virtual events. “Okay, we have some content. Something is better than nothing, and this is all we have right now. We can build on this,” I thought.
I got to work, completely scrapping the website we had originally created and positioning us as a part-media and part-digital community focused on creating and sharing content that would educate and entertain our consumer audience. I put together a plan to echo this direction on our social channels, resulting in us piquing the interest of our audience more. Not only were we seeing increased engagement rates, but the way people engaged with us changed. They felt more inclined to comment and share, a nod that we were on the right track.
Ultimately, the environment and timing was not right for us, causing us to shutter Komeeda. Through the challenges, I learned so much about resilience and flexibility — a lesson I will continue to carry with me.
tl;dr
Client
Food event organizer turned tech startup in the restaurant industry which hit a few bumps in the road.
Challenges:
Brand identity crisis
Disengaged & confused audiences
Uncertain future about industry
What I Do
Just to name a few…
Marketing, Brand, & Content Strategy
Blogging, Email Marketing, Storytelling, & Copywriting
Content Creation & Curation
Instagram Strategy
Crisis Management
Website Design & Optimization, UX Support
Cross-Team Collaboration & Project Management
Proud Moments
Hey, we all deserve to brag a little.
Proposing a drastic overhaul to brand architecture and direction to reduce audience confusion.
Introducing and running company blog, writing highly educational yet approachable essays to empower readers with new knowledge.
Navigating the brand through both the pandemic and social justice movements — a wild way to kick off a new career!
Jumpstarting email strategy and content to make the brand more human; working with graphic designer to zest up social content, particularly on Instagram.
Tearing down and completely revamping the company’s website.
Sample Work
Blogs
