The professionalism and sophistication of the entries in the 2022 SCCA Marketing Awards were exemplary. In the latest issue of SCN, we feature a selection of winning campaigns. The overall winner and recipient of the Sabina Rust Memorial Prize for Campaign of the Year went to Grand Central’s ‘Butterfly House’; Runner up was Macquarie Centre’s ‘Sending the Love’. Both are featured and are required reading for all marketing executives.
Winner of the Compelling Experiences (Large) & Overall Winner of the Sabina Rust Memorial Prize for Campaign of the Year
Campaign Managers: Julie Thompson, Sara Kenealy and John Zhang
Toowoomba is the second most populous inland city in the country and one of the largest regional centres in Queensland. It is nationally renowned for the annual Carnival of Flowers held in September, featuring the iconic Grand Central Floral Parade, which celebrated its 25th year in 2021.
While Grand Central is Toowoomba’s major discretionary shopping centre, the pandemic had impacted the centre’s capacity to deliver what the centre is most loved for: entertaining and unmissable community events.
Inviting customers back to the centre by reviving the events calendar was core to the COVID-recovery marketing strategy for Grand Central in 2021.
To encourage a predominantly family audience to re-engage with the centre post-pandemic, and to stay and enjoy the region during the September school holidays, the team recognised that there was no better opportunity than during the beloved Carnival of Flowers.
Taking inspiration from the Carnival’s theme of ‘Emerging Landscapes’, the butterfly became the focus of Grand Central’s Carnival celebrations, starting with a Floral Parade and culminating in the Butterfly House.
To celebrate the 25th year of sponsoring the Floral Parade, and to incorporate the Carnival’s theme, Grand Central’s lead float design included a large circular Butterfly House logo, surrounded by an oversized floral garland, and a colourful cubby house, with local children dressed in bee, butterfly and caterpillar costumes. The float was therefore utilised as a unique promotional opportunity to create hype for the Butterfly House activation, with more than 200,000 people in attendance at the parade.
At the heart of Grand Central’s Carnival celebrations was the Butterfly House: a purpose-built pavilion housing live, local species of butterflies. Unmissable in its centre court location, the conservatory-style pavilion inspired learning and conservation of flora and fauna, with a local butterfly specialist overseeing the project and ensuring the health of butterflies throughout the 14-day activation.
A few customers were invited into the pavilion at a time so that they could each have a personal encounter with the live butterflies via guided walks facilitated by a butterfly specialist. This immersive and magical experience also helped to educate customers on the carefully selected flowers and natural food products that support the species to thrive. In this way, the activation not only offered a mesmerising experience, but also supported the conservation efforts at the heart of the Carnival’s nature-based theme.
The design of the pavilion meant that customers of all ages and abilities were able to experience Butterfly House with wheelchair accessibility and the experience being free of charge to customers.
To further bring the Carnival theme to life, craft workshops were held to encourage ongoing education about conservation among Grand Central’s youngest community members. Children created beautiful butterfly, bee, and lady-bird wind chimes, as well as being invited to make their own seed bombs to grow butterfly-attracting flowers at home.
As one of only three Butterfly Houses within Australia, Toowoomba residents and visitors took every opportunity to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. More than 5,000 customers entered the Butterfly House during the campaign, with queues throughout the centre every day, with several customers visiting multiple times. The activation strongly contributed to traffic growth, centre sales and positive PR for the centre across local media. As a result, Grand Central hosted the experience again in September 2022, with almost double the attendance of the year prior, at over 9,000 visitors to the Butterfly House.
Grand Central’s long-standing commitment to community and ensuring the future growth and sustainability of the Darling Downs region remains core to the team’s asset planning and marketing strategy. The opportunity to share the campaign – and its message – with the Shopping Centre industry is gratefully received by the Grand Central team and the QIC Real Estate team more broadly.
