Project Overview

The Orchards project is a $1.4B Sekisui House master planned luxury development in the Norwest, Sydney’s fastest growing region. It comprises 7 stages, across 8.8 hectares and will yield 1,300 apartments on completion.

The Orchards is one of the most significant residential masterplanned communities to be introduced to Australia in over a decade. Positioned amid the urban renewal of Norwest and located on what was NSW’s first orangery established in the early 1800’s, The Orchards maps out a new benchmark for Sydney living and is on track to become one of Sydney’s most vibrant urban centres.

The suite of marketing assets created for the project included a brand video which is used in the display suite to build excitement around The Orchards’ development and the future community that it promises.

The excitement around this 10-year development has been generated not only because of its scale surpassing those previously seen in the local area, but because of the site’s rich agricultural history offering a treasure trove of stories that have been thoughtfully integrated into the residential experience and communicated throughout the brand’s marketing campaign.

Project Commissioner

Sekusui House

Project Creator

Toast Creative

Project Brief

The creation of a brand video was proposed to activate a truly genuine experience of the brand. It needed to deep-dive, and immerse interested and potential buyers in not only the reality of living at The Orchards, but the extraordinary community prosperity the region once enjoyed as the site of the first orchard in NSW.

Project Innovation/Need

Toast’s rich and strategic understanding of the corporate brand was conveyed throughout the project. The making of the brand video was informed by a 3-month strategic overview to define and create the brand as well as market research that was undertaken to ascertain the location’s history and target market, demographics and psychographics.

Having a clear understanding of the site’s appeal, connectivity, infrastructure and opportunity p­­ermitted us to formulate each market’s needs and develop tailored communications to each segment and helped us craft the relevant stories and messages required to engage a broad audience.

Sekisui House needed this video asset to reflect the sophisticated lifestyle being created by The Orchards masterplan. More than this, it needed to convey its assurance to prospective buyers that The Orchards is an opportunity to be be part of a community built on sustainability and a deep understanding of individual needs.

Design Challenge

The video needed to celebrate The Orchards lifestyle without complication and to clearly give a context and a purpose behind what is to be the largest masterplanned development of its kind seen in Sydney in over a decade.

Communicating the making of a new community in a development that uses innovation design and technology while also offering a sustainable and premium lifestyle experience - was a challenging set of messages to get across.

Other challenges presented themselves. Located away from Norwest’s centre while in the vicinity of competitor developments required the brand video to communicate the masterplan’s benefits of privacy, space and connectivity of a different kind – one with nature.

Additionally, The Orchards team was keen for the video to clearly demonstrate its values and genuine concern for community and individual well-being. It needed to do this in an engaging and compelling way that was able stand out from other offers in the area.

Effectiveness

The 7 minute brand video offers a sensory and informative introduction to life at The Orchards while paying homage to its history and addressing each of the challenges above.

It is projected in an Immersion Room that is 25 square metres, which is both intimate and large enough to feel immersed.

The final result shows a stunning use of filmic brand storytelling that is rare for the sector.