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.

Sydney is home to almost 1 million people of Asian descent. It’s why every year the city hosts one of the largest Lunar New Year celebrations outside Asia. Affluent Asian shoppers, from Australia and abroad make up a valuable portion of shoppers to the QVB, which is why it was important to celebrate the Year of The Rooster in a memorable, shareable way, alongside the many other activities on offer in the city during this period.

The campaign elements were limited to a bespoke Year of The Rooster Point Of Sale campaign showcasing Lunar New Year fashion from retailers and the QVB Rooster installation. These elements relied heavily on social media to spread the message beyond the building.

Whilst the target audience for the campaign had a female, Asian skew, the campaign was designed to be appreciated by all shoppers, regardless of gender or race.

Sydney is home to one the largest celebrations of the Lunar New Year Festival outside Asia. Our brief was to help our client, the Queen Victoria Building celebrate the Year of The Rooster in a way that not only honoured the lasting traditions of the festival, but also the level of craft and attention to detail as the retailers found within the QVB, as well as the architecture and design of the iconic building itself. Our objective was to create a bespoke installation and Point Of Sale campaign that made the QVB a destination for revellers and shoppers alike during this period. The campaign relied on owned and earned media assets within the building, social media accounts and the images shared by shoppers during the four week period to make the campaign a success in the absence of paid media.