When it comes to multi-family,
We Feel Right At Home.
Beacon Station
Columbia Ventures, our partner in this project, is not your run-of-the-mill development firm. They lead with concept and vision, building in communities on the cusp of strong growth and cultural maturation. They like to get in early on neighborhoods and urban centers with big upside and they chose Augusta for one of their most recent ventures, Beacon Station.
True to their nature, Columbia Ventures’ debut project in Augusta is a luxury mixed-use apartment community at the intersection of the Medical District and the historic Laney-Walker / Bethlehem neighborhoods. To properly launch this project, they knew they would need a partner who was as dedicated to the city and its history as they are — enter Wier / Stewart. In case you couldn’t tell from our Come See Augusta campaign, we’re just a little proud of this city.
Agency Services
Strategy
Media & Marketing Plans
Branding
Visual Identity
Campaign Development
Paid Media
Collateral Design
Merchandise Design
Website Design
The Challenge
Create a brand for this new community that is broadly appealing to everyone who will potentially live here. That's a wide audience, including everyone from families moving into the area to take advantage of our magnet schools, to young professionals and students of Augusta University. We looked to the history of the area and the train rails defining the property for our inspiration for both the name and the identity.
Our Solve
We ran straight towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Literally, we named the place Beacon Station. Our thought, “Why shy away from the train, it’s not like it’s going anywhere.” After embracing the train, we focused our energy on creating an aesthetic embodying the graphic design language around trains without being excessive. We borrowed the elements that crossed over into what the community represents — modernism, urbanism and progress.
Leasing Up
In support of ambitious leasing goals, our team kicked off a digital campaign that included a mix of social media, video and display advertising. The primary goal of this campaign was to elevate awareness of, and interest in, Beacon Station as the go-to urban living community for the go-getting student and young professional in the Augusta market.
Creative assets were designed and flighted to efficiently deliver key messaging at multiple phases of the customer journey, effectively driving traffic to the website and supporting complementary property management tactics (like ILS/PPC initiatives). The ultimate goal of these combined efforts, of course, was to deliver qualified leads to fill brand new units.
The Strategy
It’s all about the media mix. Our team was tasked with creating an efficient digital campaign to deliver multiple touch points within a highly targeted audience over several months. We leveraged static and video social ads, YouTube pre-roll video, and display advertising to complement property management’s lower funnel tactics. We saw encouraging results across initiatives with 12,648 link clicks for display and social, plus 10,535 social video views and a $0.02 average cost per video view on YouTube.
Must Have: Video
It’s no secret that video content rules the internet. According to Cisco, online videos will make up over 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022. That’s huge. Video is essential to any web site, social media and promotion strategy. But how do you make a compelling video of a property that’s still in development? Our video production team solved this case by capturing the spirit in this visually aspirational, 100% on-brand compilation.
Work It, Web
Especially in this industry the website serves as a sales rep itself. Knowing this, our web team sought out and implemented advanced web integrations to pull prospects through the leasing journey. One specific feature of interest was a way to highlight real-time availability within floorplan maps to show prospects the exact unit they would soon be able to call home.
“To successfully reach our customer we needed a local firm with a global sensibility. The team at Wier / Stewart created a jackknife of a mark that will allow us to speak to our diverse and broad customer base wherever they are.”
— Columbia Ventures
Jakob von Trapp, Partner – Columbia Ventures
“The team at W/S had the difficult challenge of creating a brand and collateral materials that could simultaneously appeal to families, students and young professionals alike. They took the ego out of the process and set to work creating a transcendent mark that does just that.”
The Takeaway
Turning bricks into clicks.
We gotta say.
“The digital campaign was our opportunity to share what Beacon Station is all about with the wider community and prospects alike. Paid media tactics were the top traffic drivers to the website which makes sense. You've got to actively get in front of your audience if you want to realize goals. You can't just wait and hope for them to find you.”
— Katie King / Strategy Director
“We spent a lot of time researching and soaking in the style and visual motifs of railroads of all eras to create an identity system that was appropriate and eye-catching, but never 'theme-y.' We sought to convey Beacon Station's vision for vibrant urban living through bold color, pattern and type, which embrace the neighborhood's history while setting a positive tone for its exciting future.”
— Rachel Baker / Designer
“The design of the Beacon Station site communicates forward motion. Similarly, the user experience was coded with meaningful user interaction to move the user from the top of the site all the way to the application button - the small details are the ticket.”