Located midway between the Sydney CBD and Sydney Airport, the $10 Billion Green Square Town Centre is now one of Australia’s most successful urban transformation projects.

However, back in 2006, things were little different.

At the time, the lead developer UrbanGrowth NSW, formerly Landcom was facing seemingly insurmountable issues. The project had transport integration problems. It was plagued by poor word of mouth and the project team was struggling to turn the 20-year vision into a transformative reality.

UrbanGrowth choose Seymour Strategists to lead the marketing and deliver a full service solution.

When we came on board, the first thing we did was develop financial feasibility studies based on local supply and demand data.

Because we were the lead marketing agent on the nearby $1 Billion Victoria Park development, Landcom’s first urban renewal project,we already had a lot of local information. This meant that we could quickly develop an early stage strategic marketing plan. ​

Our plan involved selling the town centre vision to major stakeholders – The Sydney City Council, potential development groups and landowners.

This positioning took up the pillars of a values laden community, focused on the historical context of the area and its green, connected and global status – as we tagged it – “Sydney’s First Global Village”.

Next, we updated the umbrella brand and began marketing large development parcels to major Australian development companies via tender for the first stage.

UrbanGrowth, now a major landowner, selected Mirvac as the preferred tender (Mirvac Green Square), and then together we revised the brand vision and project positioning to bring it in line with Mirvac’s business focus – the sale of high quality apartments.

This included a new go to market campaign, new logos, advertising and public relations activities. These pieces of collateral were transmitted through digital and traditional media channels and events to platform Mirvac’s direct sales process.

The result: From 2014, Mirvac and UrbanGrowth sold out the first three buildings at Green Square for record local prices in record time.

When Landcom purchased the 85ha disused Prince Henry hospital site they immediately ran into problems.

Their intention was to develop the 100-year-old site into a 900 dwelling global benchmark coastal residential community. However, dilapidated hospital buildings, the proximity of a maximum-security prison and the surrounding area located on a land locked peninsula didn’t bode well for a more upmarket, premium coastal development.

Landcom choose Seymour’s to deliver a full service property marketing solution to help them overcome these issues.

Once appointed we devoted ourselves to creating the highest vision for Prince Henry, one that would bind all parties in a common purpose.

After extensive audience and competitor research we developed a strategic marketing and implementation plan.

That plan, our ‘Brand Roadmap’ pivoted on the communication to B2B and B2C buyers of the projects 4 sustainable competitive advantages or brand pillars. We emphasized and celebrated the history, beauty, size and masterplanning philosophies to get audience attention and engagement.

We also opted to launch the brand vision for the mixed apartment, villa and detached house project via digital networks, billboards and other marketing content 12 months out from the first sales release to the B2B market.

This approach undoubtedly helped us to overcome market negativity and to build aspiration among stakeholders and potential buyers.

…and it was a breathtaking success! ​

Lured by the first large integrated development on Sydney’s eastern seaboard for many years, we sold three large parcels to three of Australia’s largest publicly and privately owned property development companies at premium prices (relevant to local market prices).

The result: We also sold land parcels directly to individual buyers and smashed the local land sale price by over 300%.​ Prince Henry won numerous awards including the UDIA’s National President’s Project of the Year.

The Hermitage at Camden was Sekisui House’s first commercial venture in Australia.

Nestled within the strands of trees from the previous land use, as the Camden Valley Golf Resort, The Hermitage has risen like an albatross up the side of the hill to the new town centre and out over the renewed Lakeside Golf Club to the North of the project.

In 2008, project manager Paynter Dixon on behalf of the landowners NSW Leagues Club/Babcock and Brown joint venture appointed Seymour’s as the marketing agent and full marketing service provider.

The project, located 50 minutes south of the Sydney CBD, was originally envisioned as a Greenfields residential golf estate and mixed use development that would over the next 8 years offer 1,800 residential lots, as well as a mixed use town centre with planned amenities such as a club, hotel, fitness centre, childcare and retail; and a 27 ha employment zone. These would complement existing site features such as a 27-hole golf course, a winery and the heritage Gledswood Homestead Estate.

Seymour’s prepared a full marketing strategy (including naming the project, streets and parks) based on extensive audience and competitive analysis of the highly active southwest growth centre.

In late 2009, the joint venture sold the project lands to Sekisui House, Australia. They are the largest homebuilder in Japan.

Seymour’s were asked in 2010 by Sekisui House to revise and update their marketing strategy.

The following year Seymour’s won a creative pitch to prepare all the marketing tactics to take the project to market. Including digital and print advertising, public relations, community engagement and all marketing collateral. ​

Seymour’s pitched the project to take a market position that maximized its chances to outperform the highly competitive local area. Using its:

– Natural beauty
– Semi-rural village flavour
– Tangible history at Gledswood Homestead
– Well designed masterplan
– Multi-tiered product offer at different price points
– Sekisui house’s unique development philosophies

In a first Seymour’s created a film, shoot on an industry quality ‘red camera’ of an endearing story of a young girls experience of living at The Hermitage. Encompassing Sekisui’s focus on family regeneration it highlighted all The Hermitage’s brand pillars to give it a unique selling proposition. And outperform the market we did.

The result: In its first release year, The Hermitage doubled its, land and house and land sales rate, with prices running 5-10% over local market competitors.