Case Study – Launch of The Church, St. Mary’s – The Morgan Group

Project

To create a campaign to raise awareness of The Church, St Mary’s, a bespoke conversion of 9 apartments in Manchester’s Hulme suburb with local press and the house buying public, that would result in maximum apartment sales pre completion.

Strategy and Plan

1. The Creative Campaign and pre-event push
Using Hulme heritage and historical research, and the links (both architecturally and historically) to the Irish community we created a campaign based around a St. Patrick’s Day themed launch and press materials.

The concept evolved into a strong classical feel to the campaign, but with a modern twist. Classical design and typefaces were combined with bold modern colours for site fascias, brochures, stationary, launch invitations and marketing suite graphics.

Press material took a distinctly Irish feel, with releases wishing “Cead Mile Failte” (a hundred thousand welcomes) to the development as a sensitive restoration of a previously redundant building, historically at the heart of the Hulme neighbourhood for over 150 years.

2. The Launch
The St. Patrick’s Day themed launch event wooed press and buyers to attend the launch. An authentic Irish party, including Celtic music and dancing, traditional Irish food and classical beverages such as Guinness and Irish coffee, created an exciting and vibrant backdrop.

A press tour of the Church was led by a team from the husband and wife developers’ team, that helped bring a real, tangible “passion” and “spirit” to the project, backing up the historical exhibition that charted The Church’s long and varied history, surviving through 15 decades and two complete cycles of urban decay and regeneration.

The aim of the launch was to create features that would highlight the long and interesting history of St. Mary’s, while profiling the development as one of the integral parts of the Hulme neighbourhood for over 150 years, a home truly at the “heart” of it’s community.

3. The Post Event Follow-up
The apartments were released for sale at the launch of the development, and then were released to the public the following day. The extensive pre-interest through tours and releases had created a ready made customer base that showed intense interest at the launch, which continued for a while after the event.

Measurement and Evaluation:

2 page feature in Manchester Evening News
News feature in Manchester Metro News
News feature in MEN Lite
2 page feature in Moving House
2 Page feature in It’s Your Move
2 Page feature in Homesearch
Articles in Moving Manchester, Manchester Update, and City Life
Potential audience reach of 511,782
2 apartments reserved on launch night
25% of apartments were sold within the first week
Press interest from The Independent, The Sunday Times, and The Sunday Telegraph for Summer 2005 Features

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