One Middle Road
It's about time
Chadstone Shopping Centre is the largest in Australia, but Vicinity’s ambition extended well beyond retail. The next step in transforming the precinct into a genuine mixed-use destination was to integrate a new commercial tower directly above the centre, connecting office tenants to one of the country’s most comprehensive lifestyle precincts and adding thousands of weekday workers to the foot traffic benefiting the centre’s retailers. The challenge Theola was engaged to solve was a perception problem: Chadstone’s brand equity was built entirely on its weekend retail identity of Christmas crowds, full car parks, shoulder-to-shoulder shopping. The weekday proposition was the opposite of that, and almost no one knew it.
The strategy required a clear-eyed audience analysis. Decision-makers at the C-suite level would respond to cost and productivity arguments;
The insight
Everyone knows the weekend Chadstone as crowded, expensive, chaotic. The weekday Chadstone is the opposite: thousands of free car parks, a world-class amenity precinct, and a reverse commute that gives people back hours every week. That gap between perception and reality was the entire opportunity.
The idea
'It's about time' works on every level the proposition demands. Time saved on the commute, time reclaimed at lunch, time given back at the end of the day. It's a benefit, not a feature and it speaks equally to the C-suite and the staff they're trying to retain.
The creative
The campaign resisted the category instinct to lead with architecture and floor plans. Instead, it centred real people and relatable moments including the school drop-off, the anniversary gift bought at lunch, leaving on time to make the productivity and lifestyle case through human behaviour, not building specifications.
