Urban Splash: Saxton

Brief:

Urban Splash believes urban redevelopment is about more than bricks and mortar. It?s about using enlightened design, creating new communities, enhancing people?s lifestyles. Saxton is their first development in Leeds.

We were briefed to communicate its uniqueness - the green space and allotments, as well as Urban Splash?s different brand profile.

The solution:

We chose garden gnomes as real, non-elitist designed objects that would release the experience of interactivity into the real world. 12 lovingly crafted gnomes are featured on the website, all customised to be a little work of gnome art, with their own names, enchanting sounds and each representing a unique benefit of the Saxton development.

We worked to achieve a certain look for each gnome that was an artistic representation of the benefit that gnome was about, so for example Glowie-G - the nu rave gnome is painted in psychedelic swirls that glow under UV light. He tells people that Saxton is only a short hop from the city centre, his animated bluetooth message is as follows: ?Dancing makes you smile wide, Moonwalk to the disco and back. All city living should be like this. Saxton?

As well as featuring these charming gnomes on the website, they were also armed with magical Bluetooth wizardry and placed in various intriguing locations across Leeds to spread the word of Saxton. The gnomes found their way into a variety of venues including bars, shops and other special homes where they transmitted their clever Bluetooth messages and enchanted the people of Leeds to visit to their online home.

Outcomes:

This delightful website has really proved to bring the gnomes to life and has captivated both the hearts of its audience and the property market as a whole.

Urban Splash picked up the Best Residential Marketing Campaign award for its Saxton development in Leeds at this year's Property Marketing Awards. The promotional campaign also scooped Best Marketing Campaign at the Yorkshire Property Awards in February.

The judges praised it as "a fresh, vibrant and humourous campaign that made its green message abundantly clear and was spot on with its audience targeting".

Simon Gawthorpe, managing director for Urban Splash Yorkshire, added: "It is wonderful to receive further recognition for what was a hugely successful campaign that contributed to the first phase of the development selling out.?