“Built By Kids” is a complete activation solution that is fun and engaging and it can be tailored to suit your objectives. This scalable and adaptable experience includes a range of STEM-based equipment, delivering an engaging open-ended playspace designed to spark imagination and drive creativity by letting kids play and discover amazing ideas that can change the world.

With a city of oversized blue blocks, a full ramp and tunnel system to encourage creativity and exploration and an amazing STEM playground, there is something for everyone at “Built by Kids”.

In addition to the included campaign assets, ENGAGE has the capacity to tailor additional “Built By Kids” inspired activities and elements based on individual requirements.

SHOOT A HOOP/WIN  A BURGER

Colour and movement was the tone of the day, and even the poor Melbourne weather (rains and overcast) couldn’t deter involvement! We created a vibrant hub of activity and fun with a “Block Party” that invited the community to engage in a friendly competition to see who could ‘Shoot a Hoop” and Win a Burger from a participating retailer. The colour palette was striking with the overall Campaign creative signage drawing attention to the tone of the Activation.

ENGAGE IN CONVERSATION

The purpose of this element of the project was to engage with shoppers, visitors and residents of Polaris 3083 Town Centre to understand what events and programs they would enjoy. Place-based engagement was the chosen method of engagement, speaking with people as they went about their daily activities and use the centre. Our partners The Conversation Caravan were brought in to deliver this element, which ended up taking place inside due to the wet weather, however this ended up providing a sanctuary for people to spend time. A magical face-painter also provided an opportunity for parents and carers to chat with the team about their responses and thoughts around the following 4 questions:

Q1. What do you love doing with your friends and family?

Q2. What activities and programs would help you or your family learn something new?

Q3. What activities and programs would help you to connect more with your family?

Q4. What activities and programs will make visiting Polaris Town Centre more fun for you and/or your family?

The team at ENGAGE are always looking for opportunities to create activations that recognise our place in the global community and offer ways to make a real difference through experiential marketing. Cromwell Property Group were onboard from the moment we pitched partnering with SolarBuddy to produce the Project Shine Campaign. The campaign invited Northpoint’s local business community to become agents for change in their lunchtime, by building a SolarBuddy solar light and writing a personalised letter to the recipient – shining a light on energy poverty and demonstrating how one small act of kindness can change the life of a child in our global community.

The gift of a SolarBuddy solar light helps children living in energy poverty to continue studying long after the sun goes down improving their education outcomes and overall health and wellbeing. Children also spend less time collecting firewood for cooking and heating and instead spend more time attending class, preparing for exams and completing homework assignments.

A custom designed and built installation took centre-stage for completed SolarBuddys to be placed on, with a daily “light-up to showcase how many lights had been completed each day.

RETAILER INTEGRATION

ENGAGE worked with Northpoint retailers to produce a “Buddy”-themed promotion for shoppers across the campaign. We encouraged them to work around the concept of “Bring a Buddy” or a friend referral offer, where they both receive a reward for either referring a friend or being referred, which tied in neatly with the Project Shine SolarBuddy Campaign.

Event Produced by AliveEngage in association with Alive Events Agency.

A targeted activation was a prime opportunity to generate some buzz and excitement in the lead up to Christmas, and also provided a way to test the market and provide solid data to formulate the future engagement strategy for both customers and retailers.

Shopping centre activation has hit a new level in the past five years. Driven by increased competition, improved retail mixes and a desire to occupy a singular position, Centres and brand experience agencies such as ENGAGE have sought to create integrated campaigns that contain a mixture of peak moments and always-on interactions.

ENGAGE designed the vibrant and interactive “13 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS” campaign for Northpoint, which consisted of 13 activation days from 28 November – 14 December. A custom designed “Pick-A-Present” display that invited shoppers who spent a certain amount to show their receipt in order to pick a present. Signage supported the promotion across the Centre and engaging promotional staff encouraged passing foot traffic to enter the Centre, make a purchase and take part in the giveaway.

In addition, every Pick-A-Present participant went into the draw to win a $1000 gift card to spend in the Centre which encouraged participation and was an opportunity to collect data on the shoppers. A PR campaign to support the promotion of the campaign and 3 social media influencers participated and promoted the campaign. As ENGAGE is a nimble agency, the team was able to identify that dropping the minimum spend to enter the Pick-A-Present competition from $20 to $10 would increase participation, and so half-way through the activation period this change was made.

Speciality Northpoint cookies and balloons delivered to key surrounding offices to encourage employees to visit the Centre and participate in the promotion

Waste Warriors is a complete activation solution that is fun and engaging and it can be tailored to suit your objectives. This scalable and adaptable experience includes a range of sustainable workshops, ‘always on’ activations and live performances.

The Waste Warriors experience come as a complete campaign including; a style guide with graphic design assets and branded elements. It is a custom-designed and built work shop with ‘always on’ set-up’s. It even comes with its very own theme song, We are the Waste Warriors.

In addition to the included campaign assets, ENGAGE has the capacity to tailor additional Waste Warrior inspired activities and elements based on individual requirements. To extend the life and reach of the campaign we recommend integrating a social media strategy, partnering with local schools, creating an online engagement experience for kids and parents whilst also integrating retailers.

Overcoming a challenge requires a real solution. In developing brand activations, identifying the solution is best done by going to the root cause of the issue. Obtaining data is a challenge; the solution is to provide a relevant reward. Creating community engagement is a challenge; local partnerships will build strong community ties. Acland Street retailers had not been backward in expressing their dissatisfaction with the closure of the famous promenade to traffic, resulting in a sudden decline in retail sales. The council had a serious PR problem, even if only in the short-term before awareness grew and the warmer months brighten the St.Kilda sands again. The solution was more people. Activity. Life. Shoppers! And more than just the presence of bodies, it was necessary to build the character of the space and create a new identity for Acland Street in the mindset of locals and retailers.

As an experiential agency, not only do we know how to create life and draw people in, we also own the means to do it. Our warehouse holds a range of event-ready furniture, display devices, props, games, décor and styling gems. So when our event designer set about making a pop-up playground, the means were close at hand. A series of coloured shapes at various heights were strategically placed along site-lines to interrupt passers-by and create interest. Once they were in the activation space – a newly paved area joining the two sides of the now defunct road – the options to be creative, interact and while away the time were plentiful. Giant versions of chess, Jenga and Connect 4 created friendly rivalries and the chance to make new friends. Art blocks – over-sized white cubes with coloured chalk in arms reach – were an instant hit, allowing the activation to become a record of itself over the duration. The space was layered in key locations with astroturf, which managed to soften the abundance of concrete and provide additional places for kids to sit and just be. Parents were happy to sip coffee (from a local retailer!) whilst sitting on a coloured cube – exactly as we hoped they would. As this activation took place during the school holidays and across the AFL Grand Final weekend, kids and families were not in short supply, hence the need to supply materials with the dual purposes of décor and seating.

Being a community event in a public area with a strong skew towards younger patrons, we stationed a supervisor at the activation across the 4 days. This also enabled us to maintain the cleanliness and order of the infrastructure and facilitate a speedy pack-down each night into a vacant storeroom adjacent to the site. The onsite ambassador was also able to promote the council’s involvement in the project and manage ‘story time’, which was provided by the local library each day at the site.

The City of Port Phillip Acland Street pop-up playground was conceived out a simple desire to be visible and attractive. Simple techniques – colour, size, interactivity – played their part, along with community integration and effective time-planning.

Shopping centre activation has hit a new level in the past five years. Driven by increased competition, improved retail mixes and a desire to occupy a singular position, Centres and brand experience agencies such as ENGAGE have sought to create integrated campaigns that contain a mixture of peak moments and always-on interactions. ‘Place-making’ – the term used to describe the process and outcome of being inspired by local stories and characteristics – is finding increasing value in the shopping-centre space, particularly as it pertains to design and visual elements. Our involvement in the Grand Central launch was a perfect example of this new approach, and one which we took very seriously based on the visibility of the outcome and its propensity to drive PR content.

Launching in spring and around the same time as the iconic, 60-year-old Towoomba Carnival of Flowers, the subject of our installation seemed an obvious one. The variety of textures, colours, shapes and hanging options available to florals also gave us – and the designer – plenty of scope to vary the execution at each of the three locations. However, as an experiential agency, well-versed in product launches and property development events, we know that impact and memorability are created when an artful twist takes the viewer in an unexpected direction. Hence our decision to install giant, colourful PAPER flowers from the roof of the new Centre. A paper application also mitigated operational concerns around upkeep, longevity and appearance.

Experienced paper artists are not easy to find however, especially ones working on this scale. Thus, a significant consideration in the planning stage for this project was finding the right collaborator, which happily resulted in the engagement of Benja Harney, a paper engineer extraordinaire. With over 12 years’ experience developing a body of work that pushes the possibilities of the paper medium, Benja and his studio, Paperform, are at the top of their game in this country.

Central to the design phase of the installations was identifying techniques for representing Grand Central’s four core values. An exhaustive process of modelling and experimentation allowed us to work closely with the designer to achieve an on-brand execution that truly spoke to all four values with sensitivity and devotion: ‘Genuine’ was captured by respecting weight and gravity and hanging the heaviest elements at the lowest point. ‘Charming’ was evident in the detail and warm, matte finishes. ‘Spirited’ was brought to life via bold colours matched subtly and through interlocking forms. ‘Pioneering’ – perhaps the hardest to manifest – was referred to in scale and by juxtaposing repetition with open form. Anything we produce, from visual displays to brand and sponsorship activations, always takes the soul of the brand as its most influential element. Nothing else creates the kind of ENGAGEment we are known for.

The final piece of the puzzle was the installation, which despite a few operational issues – such as the remoteness and size of the assemblage area – was seamless. Nothing is ever a certainty in large-scale activations that take shape in spaces being completed as you are bumping in! But this is the nature of shopping centre launches and one that we are very comfortable with.

Event Produced by Alive Engage in association with Alive Events Agency.

A lunchtime visit to the NGV during the school holidays turned out to be the beginning of an inspiring collaboration that was perfect for this brief. A small exhibit of a ‘Fictional Factory’ by Soft Stories had a solid framework that we could expand into a fully interactive, immersive shopping centre activation. It satisfied the engaging qualities the client was after, and a version had been tried and successfully tested, meaning we were working with established creators that could make the short lead-time achievable. As an accomplished experiential agency, our main objective was to design the perfect experience, ensuring it satisfied the positioning objectives as well as the operational mandatories, including diversification of the experience within the Centre footprint to drive visitation to other precincts, and provision of multiple opportunities for branded take-home objects leading to an ‘extension’ of the experience.

As a result, the Re-Porpoising Plant was stretched across four different activations. Starting at the Clock In Desk, children could sign-up and receive their timesheet (remember, it’s a factory!) with a stamp of approval that was dried by jellyfish.

The second stage was the heart of the Re-Porpoising story; children were invited to bring along their recycling to form the raw material required to produce Re-Porpoised Porpoises. At no less than nine points of interaction, children were invited to become integral parts of the factory by turning cranks that pulled the pulleys and drove the conveyor belts that brought the factory to life.

Recycling was ‘sorted’ into categories to become porpoise parts. Used coffee cups went into the ‘Flipper Flattener’ to be ironed flat and then moved on to the ‘Flipper Snipper’ to become flippers. Empty bottles formed the bodies of the porpoises and were filled with vital organs (hearts, lungs, intestines, bones) which, in signature Soft Stories style were handmade out of felt. Paint, glue and a ‘Puff N Polish’ later, the bottle-porpoises have become huggable plush porpoises. Before each porpoise makes the final leap into the ocean, a polaroid camera takes their picture and ‘prints’ it onto a sticker that the participants can take with them.

Moving upstairs to the Workshop, children are invited to be creative through a series of activities such as making and decorating their own safety goggles to wear in the factory and creating a paper smokestack with moving parts. All work created was able to be retained by the child.

At the final activation site, our hand painted selfie wall, kids can take a Selfie with a Porpoise, encouraging parents and children to record and share their experience on Centre social channels.

The whole experience took dwell-time to around 20 minutes, integrated multiple touch points and provided the Centre with branding and post-experience opportunities, such as the competition that kids entered at the workshop.