Hard-hit by the pandemic, real-estate investor and developer Ivanhoé Cambridge—which owns 19 malls across Canada—had to reimagine their marketing approach in order to succeed in the new normal. Due to permanent budget cuts, outsourcing their communication needs was no longer viable.
That’s why TUX created a brand toolkit that allowed the company to produce their communication assets in-house. Most importantly, this also helped them achieve a nearly impossible feat: repositioning malls as an important shopping destination for retailers, all while successfully reconnecting with the public after the long hiatus.
Reframing a broken narrative
So how do you go about making malls relevant for retailers and consumers in the digital age? You do it by reframing the narrative. Malls have been telling the same story for far too long: generic lifestyle print campaigns filled with the traditional fashion models and devoid of any real message or emotion.
The truth is, consumers aren’t inspired by malls or their campaigns. What draws them in are products, retailers, and the experiences these spaces provide. That’s why we created the Everything. Now. campaign. This communication platform serves to remind consumers of the convenient abundance of options, spontaneity, and vibrancy that only shopping a mall—in real life—can deliver. Everything. Now. puts the spotlight on retailers and the intangibles that make a shopping trip worthwhile, even in the new normal.
Enabling always-on creative freedom
Making the mall relevant in the digital age also means making the mall live and engage with people outside its doors. It’s why we created a digitally savvy platform that empowers Ivanhoé’s team to create content and engage in conversations online, in real time. Inspired by editorial and social-media language, we put together an accessible, spontaneous, and uninhibited tone that invites the team to comment, react, and use the all-encompassing “we” to engage with consumers. The language contains exclamation points, interjections, and superlatives. Words are used as graphic elements that can be played with, stacked, or duplicated.
Sharing reactions, engaging conversations
A generous range of stickers allows the communication platform to inspire people of all ages and cultures, consisting of images that reflect realistic consumers, diversified products, and goods. Coupled with background imagery, the stickers give Ivanhoé the creative freedom to articulate just about any message. This provides them with the much-needed flexibility and creative freedom to adapt messaging to meet the needs of all 19 centers and their varying audiences, across all seasons and touchpoints.
“I’m blown away by the thoughtfulness of the strategy, the quality of the creative, and the manner that this platform will strategically push our business forward in new and exciting ways.”
- Jennifer Dunn, Senior Director of Marketing Retail at Ivanhoé Cambridge
Raising the bar with a digital brand book
As part of our commitment to take Ivanhoé online, as well as support its communication team as they transition towards in-house production, we created the company’s first digital brand book. This extremely user-friendly guidebook provides the team with everything they need—from graphic codes to writing rules and strategic communication pillars—in just a click.
Credits
Account Director
Sandra Dagenais
Client Partner
Charlotte Bergeron
Strategist
Melissa Tucker-Gagné
Producer
Christina Meunier
Creative Director
Charlene Sepentzis
Lead Copywriter
Élyse Noël de Tilly
Copywriters
Anna Claringbould
Antoine Cayouette
Art Director
Lian Benoit
Graphic Designer
Pamela Jaton
Motion Designer
Lochlan Doyle
Production Designers
Jean-Michel Lavoie
Mateusz Markiewicz
Photographer
Kelly Jacob (Consultat)
Makeup & Hair Stylist
Alper Sisters (Teamm)
Stylist
Izabel Soucy (Teamm)
Prop Stylist
Jeremy Noël
Retouching
Béatrice Munn
BTS Footage & Shots
Yasmine Seck