Dock 5
Creating connected communities in the city
New city centre living
Working with ForLiving to promote a new rent to market development, Dock 5. The development marks the creation of a new community on the edge of Manchester City Centre and is one of the first of its kind for the company, comprising of 394 affordable, sustainable apartments for community-conscious millennials, hosting premium amenities such as a Gym, Concierge Service, Cinema and Dining.
Challenge
Events since March 2019 have thrown up some big life choices for young people finishing University or at the start of their careers. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a lack of insight relating to a potential shift in short-term tenant attitudes and how this could skew our target audience's decision to lease.
Before creating the brand and accompanying promotional material there was a challenge to uncover:
- What do our audiences consider as important when it comes to renting?
- How do they feel about moving in the current climate?
- What are their must-have amenities and how have they changed since the pandemic?
- Any pricing considerations
Collaborate
Working together with the client and their research agency, we were able to use qualitative data to derive actionable insights such as:
- Our target audience currently lived within the City Centre, city outskirts or at home with parents
- Working from home had opened up new opportunities for where people can live/work
- Our target audience were no longer confined by the desire to live within walking/commuting distance of the office, with young people acknowledging they can now work and live at opposite ends of the countries, should they wish
- The reality of working/studying from home meant space and size of the property had become a more important consideration and our target audience wanted as much space as their budget allowed
Create
Taking the learnings and insights, we created a brand, tone of voice and accompanying promotional material which highlighted:
- A modern, attractive and premium look and feel to engage our young, trendy audience groups
- A focus on amenities, to assure prospective tenants had everything ‘under one roof’
- Both the inside and outside space and square footage, to give a comparison to competing City Centre plots
- Community events, including a mix of leisure, live music and local hospitality suppliers, particularly alluring during a period of restrictions and lockdown
- Sustainable qualities of the development and their ‘social at heart’ origins speaking to the environmentally conscious
Change
The overall response to Dock 5 has been positive, aligning with the change in tenants’ wants and needs due to COVID-19. Phase 1, 192 properties, have been leased with many off-plan.
A further 190 properties are about to be leased with a waiting list of interested prospective tenants. Dock 5 has become a pinnacle of affordable property with premium facilities and is one of the catalysts for further growth within the area.
The expectation of the surveyed participants was that DOCK 5 would be much more expensive, on par with City Centre prices and out of their price bracket. With affordability and accessibility at its core, Dock 5 became a more alluring proposition, making the location less of a barrier, with most willing to explore a higher standard of living, for less.
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149048
Impressions made
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66887
People reached
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627
%
increase in engagement *in comparison to campaign 1
