Amacon – District

CHALLENGE

When Amacon, a prominent Canadian real estate developer, wanted to really differentiate their latest condo project at East 7th and Main Street in Vancouver they also wanted to stray away from the same-same, me too approach that this city has been overrun with. They asked Industrial Brand to help them break free and capture the essence of the neighbourhood.

APPROACH

Before we started with the naming portion of the project we established that to stand out we needed to link to the history of the site and culture of the area, a Collective created by the souls and actions of its residents: shops, food, art, architecture, and events made by the aggregate of their ideas and values. And most importantly, we had to be genuine. This meant tossing out overused words, phrases and adjectives such as urban, spacious, luxury, incredible, spectacular and legendary!

We created the name District for the project to bring to mind the name of a favourite bar, restaurant or shop as much as to define the area within the neighbourhood. In fact, even elements for the logo were found on the street, including on tree grates.

RESULTS

Since we work and live in the area already, we geared up with our cameras and set out to capture the people, places and things that make Main Street, well, Main Street. We did this several times throughout the project and many of these images have been used throughout the materials.

Speaking of which, these included: stationery, teaser and launch websites, email template, twitter site branding, promotional brochure and advertising. In addition, we developed all the site singage including giant 40’ x 2-’ billboards, the presentation centre exterior signage and interior branding and messaging.

In a market still recovering from the recent economic downturn, the project was 94% sold on the opening day. The balance sold within a week, leading the way for the developer to expand the project to the planned second building much earlier than expected. A success by all measures, and sure to be a great place to live shortly.

“We at Amacon have had the pleasure of working with Ben, Mark and the IB team since the spring of 2009. We began our relationship with IB on a project called District in South Main. This was a different project than most as it was in a somewhat undeveloped neighborhood and we knew we needed to go “outside of the box” to appeal to our target market. IB provided creative and insightful ideas and presentation thus leading to great success. We since continued our relationship on completely different projects but without disappointment IB has continued to deliver. They pride themselves on creativity and hard work which has paved they way for their great success!” – Nic Jensen, Sales and Marketing Manager, Amacon

Launch website: District