Creating buzz in a new neighborhood

Via6 was in an area that had yet to become known and was entering what was poised to be a crowded apartment tower market. This called for an aggressive marketing campaign.

A great product in need of a story

Via6 is in in Seattle’s Denny Triangle, which is north of the Central Business District and south of South Lake Union. It consists of two 24-story towers with a six-story podium. It has 654 apartments, and a unique open ground-floor retail experience that includes a restaurant, juice and coffee shop, urban market, barbershop and bike shop, plus a seamlessly integrated leasing office and amenity space.

Amazon’s multiple new office buildings and other development have transformed Denny Triangle into a bustling urban district. But when Red Propeller started working on Via6, it was still a no-man’s land of parking lots, car dealerships and old motels built for the 1962 World’s Fair.

Via6 had a name, logo and great product already. Pine Street Group asked us to help create a story and campaign to introduce the building and gain traction before a number of other towers came to market

“Talk of the town”

We created a “Talk of the town” campaign – relating to the quotation mark in the logo, and our target audience’s interest in arts, culture and learning. The campaign included:

• Getting people to GoPro video themselves answering questions in Seattle pedicabs (they were given free rides for doing so);
• Creating a microsite where people could post what they thought the talk of the town was and answer a question we posted each week;
• Creating a video series with key thinkers in surrounding neighborhoods; and
• Sponsoring bike-to-work day, including breakfast from a local restaurant.

Our biggest effort was a social media-driven scavenger hunt that included a series of daily challenges, and awarded points for likes and shares. Prizes included food and experiences from neighborhood partners, and a grand prize of a year of free rent at Via6.

The result is that Via6 opened about half pre-leased, at market leading rents – it was the first tower to break $3/square foot in Seattle – in a previously undefined neighborhood.