My first campaign for Lansdowne Shopping Centre was with my Thumbnail Creative Group team in the early 1990’s. When I pitched them in 2011, I was on my own.
When Lansdowne was built, Richmond BC was primarily english speaking but by the early 2000’s the population of Richmond (AKA the New Chinatown) was predominantly Asian with over 45% of the population being Chinese. As well competition had increased with Lansdowne now sandwiched between two larger malls, one of which almost exclusively served the Asian community and the other which was 95% larger and with superior shops and services.
The challenge was how to increase Lansdowne’s market share by appealing to the Asian community without alienating its existing english speaking customers. As well, the campaign budget did not allow for much in the way of custom photography.
But I do love a good challenge.
Graphics can easily communicate across language barriers. When it comes to communication one thing almost everyone loves is cartoons. I decided to play on how speech bubbles transcend pretty much every language and humanize the mall by having the mall (logo) “talk”with pictures.
This allows for a wide range of image possibilities: graphics, illustrations or photos. This was important as there was a very limited budget.
Brand advertisements such as billboards, and transit ads used images and the text was kept minimal - just to promote the shops and give the consumer information on how to find the mall.
Event ads often utilized illustration, usually royalty free images to reduce costs.
Over time we grew the campaign to promote the variety of products available in the mall. However we still could not afford custom photography for all the products so I sourced high quality imagery from manufacturers.
The campaign ran for 8 years but unfortunately I was never able to get metrics on the campaign. I can say that this campaign was created and produced for a fraction of the 1990’s campaign and from my observations traffic did appear to increase.