The business challenge
Get shoppers more engaged and bring energy to the streets
Yarra City Council is a local council in Victoria. Yarra’s suburbs have a rich and varied history which is reflected in the city’s built form, natural environment and diverse community composition.
In the early years, Yarra was much more industrial and was home to many iconic Australian brands such as Fosters Brewery, Heinz, and the Rosella jam and sauce factory. The industrial focus has shifted to a mix of residential and retail over the years, as the population and demand for inner-city living has increased.
Yarra City Council approached Assemblo to develop and support an initiative to drive people into the streets across the whole region, in particular providing support to struggling retail centres.
The insight
Customers love to shop in vibrant, energetic centres
Buskers and live music enhance local retail by attracting foot traffic, creating a vibrant atmosphere, and encouraging shoppers to linger, increasing the likelihood of purchases.
Music positively influences mood, fosters a sense of community, and supports local talent, positioning retail spaces as lively and engaging destinations. Affordable and adaptable, live performances complement events or promotions, boost dwell time, and encourage repeat visits, driving economic benefits for local businesses while enriching the overall customer experience.
The idea
Attract Melbourne’s best buskers to Yarra
Yarra City Council runs many events to support the local music scene. Leaning into this heritage, we worked with their team to develop Busking in Yarra, an annual event focused on enriching the streets with quality live music performances.
The campaign took the place of a busking competition, offering lucrative prizes to attract a high calibre of buskers to the precincts. The campaign was sponsored by many local businesses, including Assemblo.
The competition was supported through the creation of a mobile-first website paired with QR codes, where the public could find the location of the many performers and vote for their favourite acts.
A detailed event calendar, a map, and complex social media integration gave consumers a great digital experience and made the site easy to access when stumbling upon a live performance.
We reached out to buskers, managed the event social media, and ran geo-targeted digital advertising campaigns during the event.
The impact
Busking in Yarra was a huge success, driving high foot-traffic and strong engagement from locals and traders.
The Busking in Yarra social media pages proved popular with sponsors, traders associations, performers and the public using Busking In Yarra to promote their acts, draw people to see the shows and find out more information.
Some key highlights included:
- More than 9000 unique visitors to the Busking in Yarra competition website during the promotional period
- More than 3600 votes cast by the public, with multiple winners through different categories
- Generated 1700 new social media followers
- Thousands of new subscribers to the Yarra City Council email list and social channels
- High engagement and participation from local traders and main streets during the promotion
- Attracted 12 local businesses to sponsor the event
- 31 buskers competed in the competition.