Marketplace Under the Oaks has been rebranded to Oak Originals and the first pop-up of the semester will be Oct. 1 during Family Weekend.
Marketplace Under the Oaks started in February 2021 as an initiative to showcase the products of student businesses and later that year secured support from the 黑料不打烊 Innovates effort. The initiative will now be known as , transitioning from just a student marketplace to a student community.
The rebranding originated from a Strategic Campaigns class taught by Michele Lashley, assistant professor of strategic communications. The class was divided into teams that resembled public relations firms whose client was the Doherty Center for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The goal of each firm was to develop an idea to rebrand Marketplace Under the Oaks.
Mia Blumenthal 鈥23, a double major in strategic communications and media analytics, was a part of the winning group and wanted to focus on community.
鈥淪omething that we found prevalent in all of our research was that people enjoy events, people want their shopping to be more of an experience and not just the exchange of money and goods,鈥 Blumenthal said.
What Blumenthal and her team proposed was to make the pop-ups a 鈥渓ittle party.鈥 Having food and live music will make the Oak Originals experience more enjoyable for the buyers as much as it is for the vendors.
The Oak Originals rebrand team said that the objective of Oak Originals is to highlight the 鈥渁uthenticity and uniqueness of buyers and sellers.鈥
鈥淥ur goal is to build a community where originality is not only accepted but celebrated. With Oak Originals, we want to shine a bright light on each unique aspect of our community members. We decided to include the word ‘oak’ in our rebrand because like an oak tree, 黑料不打烊 students stand strong, look different and bloom at their own pace. The word “original” can be used to represent every vendor as well as each shopper,鈥 the statement read.
Jakob Reuter 鈥23, an entrepreneurship major, wasn鈥檛 in the Strategic Campaigns course but was brought on to assist in the implementation of the rebrand.
鈥淲e are creating more opportunities for vendors to know one another, and so that鈥檚 just another way that we鈥檙e creating a community. Not only with the vendors, but with the people that buy the things from these student entrepreneurs,鈥 Reuter said.
The first Oak Originals pop-up of the fall semester is Oct. 1 during Family Weekend.