The business challenge

How to engage Rotary Camberwell Sunday Market attendees to learn more about Camberwell Junction

The Rotary Camberwell Sunday Market attracts 250,000 people to Camberwell Junction every year, and that number continues to grow.

A challenge faced by the Marketplace Development Fund (MDF) is that many of these people attend the market and then leave without exploring Camberwell Junction’s vibrant retail, experiential, and food and dining offering. In some cases, they actively avoid the main street.

Camberwell Junction has evolved in recent years, with a strong health and wellness category and a lot more casual dining options and speciality shops that appeal to the typical market attendee, but this new offering needed to be better communicated with this audience.

The insight

Find a common ground for Sunday Market attendees to connect with Camberwell Junction

The typical Rotary Camberwell Sunday Market attendee doesn’t respond well to being directly approached with sales messages and offers for the Camberwell Junction. In addition to this, research suggested visitors didn’t look favourably at Camberwell Junction, with quotes including “We’re not ‘Camberwell people'”.

Events provide a great way to attract attention and connect with Sunday Market attendees at their level. Outside of the market, vibrant and unique events are also a massive part of Camberwell Junction’s make up. Unique events provide the perfect opportunity to create memorable connections and conversations with market-goers to promote the wider precinct and form stronger connections between the market and Camberwell Junction.

The idea

Celebrate the lifelong relationship between Camberwell and the Minogue sisters

Growing up in the area, the Minogue sisters have a strong connection to Camberwell, and with Kylie returning to the area in 2022, it felt like a great opportunity to celebrate two Australian icons with an inclusive and exciting event. The event evolved from Kylie Appreciation Day in its first iteration in 2022, to a larger and more focused Kylie and Dannii Day in 2023.

Entertainers Della Katessen, Gabriella Labucci and Brenda Bressed hosted the day, and there was a special performance from Melbourne’s most famous Kylie impersonator, Millie Minogue. DJ Argonaut kept the crowds happy with a continuous flow of Kylie and Dannii songs throughout the event. 

Fans of the pop stars were enthusiastic participants on the day, with many dressing up in their favourite Kylie and Dannii outfits.

The event ran for the duration of the Rotary Camberwell Sunday Market and included live music and performances, triva, prizes, a fashion parade, photo wall, and a dress up competition.

The impact

Kylie and Dannii Day has been running as an annual event since 2022, getting bigger and better each year.

To promote the greater retail offering of Camberwell Junction, promoters handed out supporting collateral featuring trader offers and promotions, driving visitors to extend their stay in Camberwell Junction for dining or shopping. A trader pack was developed and distributed to traders ahead of the event to help them organise their own activities to take advantage of the crowds.

The day was also supported with the creation of custom illustrations, wayfinding signage, branded merchandise including hats, life-size cutouts and hand wavers, prizes, and bespoke stage backdrops. Our photographers and videographers captured the event to support post-event editorial, social media and promotion to further leverage the activation and grow email databases.

In addition to promotion, market research was also carried out on the day to obtain feedback from attendees, with extremely positive feedback and useful insights captured to inform future activities.

In the lead up to the event, we ran a marketing campaign to drive interest that included social media activity, article creation, digital banners and advertising, PR and online event creation, print flyers delivered to 20,000 local homes, a custom event landing page, and out-of-home advertising.

The 2023 event achieved fantastic results, including:

• There was estimated to be more than 8,000 people through the event.
• Organic PR included coverage by the Nine News TV network, shares and engagement from Kylie and Dannii Minogue on their social media channels, social engagement from the performers and attendees. The event was featured by the City of Boroondara, Eventbrite, and a range of local event websites and press. The hashtags #kylieanddannii #kylieanddanniiday both trended on TikTok and Instagram during the event.
• Strong trader engagement providing special offers, prizes and vouchers.
• Across social media our campaigns generated 140,000 impressions, reaching more than 75,000 unique users
• 18,000 visitors to camberwellshopping.com.au in October.
• More than 3000 visits to the Kylie and Dannii Day website and event pages.
• Positive feedback from the City of Borooondara councillors, Balwyn Rotary, local traders and the general public, with a strong interest in repeat participation in future iterations of the campaign.

Kylie and Dannii Day proved a huge success with excellent feedback from all stakeholders between City of Boroondara, Rotary Camberwell Sunday Market and the Camberwell Junction traders.