The QVB Rooster.

Chinese New Year celebrations are renowned for the cliché paper lanterns, lion dancers, dragons, kites and fireworks. These are considered kitsch by a lot of people, which is at odds with the premium fashion, gifts, accessories and service the QVB is renowned for.

Our idea was to create a “Neo-traditional” Year of The Rooster installation, one that paid homage to the tradition of the Lunar New Year festival, as well as the contemporary Australian design and fashion found within the retail centre. Its purpose was to draw shoppers and tourists into the building during the Lunar New Year festival, to help reacquaint them with everything on offer from our retailers.

A team of local artists who embody the same values of craft and quality as the QVB contributed to the project. Custom furniture makers and fabricators Reso & Co. created the steel skeletal structure that was wrapped in 10 metre lengths of fine Asian fabrics by Maker Maker Creative to form the body of the Rooster. Referencing traditional Asian paper craft, textile and paper artist Jeff McCann hand made hundreds of intricate feathers to embellish the colourful head and tail of the Rooster. As a final nod to the traditions of Lunar New Year, “hong bao” lucky red envelopes were sewn together to create the wattle underneath the rooster’s beak. Visible from 3 levels of the QVB, this bespoke, 5 metre artwork stood proudly beneath the central dome and faced the direction of the sun rise in the east, alluding to the rooster being a sign of dawn and awakening.

Thousands of visitors to the QVB posted images of the QVB Rooster to social media resulting in millions of impressions and local media coverage from blogs and news media outlets.

Daily Organic Reach of the QVB’s own Facebook page posts increased by 1127% compared to the same period last year.

Impressions were also up 24%.

The online and social sentiment was very overwhelmingly positive, as people shared and commented on the campaign.