People who move to Downtown Phoenix don’t do it for convenience. They do it because they’re looking to live the Downtown lifestyle.
Development in the area has boomed, but the area is still undergoing a transformation. On paper, the people seeking to live in the area are diverse, ranging from recent grads to empty nesters. But at their core, there’s a uniting quality. The Downtown Phoenix renter craves the urban lifestyle, they crave proximity to the creative Roosevelt Row arts community.
When marketing Moontower, we had several challenges to overcome to succeed in reaching this target audience, including:
- Moontower began its lease-up in early 2023, entering a market that had experienced a substantial influx of new units since 2020, with even more under construction.
- With a September delivery date, we would miss prime leasing season for Phoenix (May – July).
- The project was disruptive to the market, delivering a new level of high design and curation to the market that had yet to be seen. The marketing and branding needed to reflect this and differentiate it from just another luxury highrise.
- Nestled in the Roosevelt Row Arts District in the heart of Downtown Phoenix, it was crucial to authentically embrace the surrounding arts community.
- A tight marketing budget meant we would need to get creative in order to compete with competitors running traditional (and more expensive) marketing playbooks.
We solved for these challenges by creating a disruptive brand and entering the market early, capturing a pent-up demand and brand buy-in well before leasing kicked off. We embraced the surrounding arts community through an Artist-in-Residence program, and we got crafty with our ad spend.
Welcome to Moontower
To understand the Moontower difference simply set foot in its welcoming lobby. One step in and all five senses begin to fire: the smell of fresh-brewed espresso, the sound of a crackling fire over a perfectly curated playlist, the feel of the velvet sofa, the taste of a handcrafted matcha and ooooh the sights.
You won’t find mass-produced artwork or indestructible leather couches that are commonplace in the industry. At Moontower, you’ll find coworking areas akin to the best of WeWork, an art collection any curator would envy, a lobby like a boutique metropolitan hotel, and a pool deck that feels like a vacation destination.
Where others prioritize durability over comfort, square footage over activation, Moontower leans into design and packs in energy per square foot™. The design is eclectic with elements that are bold and punchy, yet minimalistic. This brings a sophistication and an element of high design not seen at other projects in the area.
In lieu of institutional-style built-ins, the standard in most multifamily common areas, Moontower uses furniture pieces and case goods that feel less bulky and more like home. Vintage rugs and materials with inherent patina allow for heavy use without compromising look and feel for durability.
Located in Phoenix’s arts district, it was important for Moontower to support local artists. The building’s bespoke art package includes originals and reprints by local artists and features two custom-commissioned murals by local artists in the cafe and on the building exterior.
Moontower’s design-forward value proposition is different from anything in the market. The challenge was how to create a brand and marketing strategy that would differentiate the property and capture attention.
Building a Disruptive Brand
Moontower took a risk with edgy branding, clever copywriting, cinematic imagery and a flirtatious energy. Its web copy reads more like a text from a friend, and its Instagram looks more like an influencer account than an apartment. The branding team created a collection of flirtatious headlines such as “Come back to our place,” and “Love your vibe, wanna move in?” designed to stop people’s scroll and disrupt what people think of an apartment ad.
This risk paid off and Moontower’s ethos resonated with renters, driving a waitlist of 1,000+ before the property opened.
Selling the Lifestyle
To bring the brand to life, we partnered with a local photographer to develop a signature photography style that incorporated film photography and a cinematic editing style.
With a brand and voice in place, and a photographer on board, but a building that was still under construction, our team had to get creative to capture video and photo content nine months before we had a building to shoot in.
To do so, we set out to market the Moontower lifestyle. Sell the vision of the life our target audience envisioned when they thought of moving to Roosevelt Row. We planned a three-day lifestyle video and photo shoot in the neighborhood surrounding the building.
Our social media manager curated a list of local influencers to serve as models. These influencers were enticed by the chance to work with the noted photographer and the opportunity to get the photos and videos taken in the shoot for their own content.
This shoot generated enough content to sustain us for the nine-month marketing and pre-leasing period.
This strategy was core to the early growth of the Moontower social networks. These influencers shared the content we tagged them in, helping us grow our following. By strategically engaging local influencers for this campaign, Moontower gained credibility and generated early buzz through organic sharing.
At opening, Moontower sent branded merchandise to a curated list of Phoenix influencers who resonated with our target demographic and exemplified the Downtown Phoenix lifestyle. This resulted in awareness through unboxing videos and influencers becoming residents, further enhancing organic promotion.
Growing Our Following and Generating Demand on Social Media
Reels-First Strategy
Seeing Instagram’s video-forward algorithm shift, Moontower pursued a first-in-industry, reels-forward strategy that mixed educational leasing content with relatable lifestyle moments.
By leveraging the algorithm with reels that reflected our evocative brand, utlilized our cinematic imagery and featured our local influencers, our social reach took off. Anecdotally, Moontower was the talk of the town. When visiting the market, everyone in Downtown Phoenix knew our brand and our social media account. The DMs came rolling in – when can we lease? where do I see floorplans? how do I reserve a spot?
By May 2023, after just four months, Moontower’s Instagram had the highest following in the market surpassing all of its competitors. Over 10 months, Moontower published 100+ reels which resulted in over 1.3 million organic impressions.
Establishing an Artist-in-Residence Program
To authentically embrace its location in the Roosevelt Row arts district and invite the creative spirit into the building, Moontower’s Artist in Residence (A.I.R.) program was created.
A.I.R. offers artists rent-free living and creative spaces. This initiative forged a win-win situation: supporting the arts and generating buzz while providing artists with rent-free homes in the arts district’s core.
When the program was announced, it generated immediate buzz amongst the Roosevelt Row community. We partnered with a panel of prominent figures in the Phoenix art community to select seven artists to participate in the program.
Since, the program as has continued to drive brand awareness through our our Artists in Residence’s social presence, boosted PR through media coverage in both local and national publications, and fostered community through their hosted events setting the stage for future renewals.
Additionally, because these seven artists live on the property, they regularly create social media content for their own channels that the Moontower team can repurpose as UGC, creating a more authentic and engaging social media presence.
The program also cost the property very little; the artist residences are taken from projected vacancy during lease-up.
The collective efforts of the resident artists have garnered significant online reach and visibility. The program proved so valuable that it has been approved for a Year 2.
Maximizing our Advertising Budget
Finally, rather than competing on traditional, expensive multifamily ad platforms like Apartments.com and paid search, we embraced new platforms, finding success and more “bang for our buck” on platforms like Meta and TikTok ads. By reallocating our Apartments.com budget to TikTok, we achieved significantly higher impressions and engagement at a lower cost—proving that, with well-crafted creative, these platforms can deliver impressive results.
Early Marketing Success = Continued Leasing Wins
Moontower commenced its lease-up in July 2023, entering a competitive market where a significant number of units had already been added since 2020, with even more on the way.
Moontower’s early marketing campaign, including its disruptive brand, targeted social growth and reach, thoughtful engagement of the surrounding arts community, and strategic ad spend, drove it to outpace the market despite supply concerns.
Despite beginning lease-up at the tail end of peak leasing season for a September move-in, the campaign had built strong demand among target renters. By the time hard-hat tours began, every spot was fully booked, and the VIP waitlist had grown substantially. Many prospects even extended their current leases on a month-to-month basis to align with Moontower’s timeline.
The property saw impressive leasing momentum from the outset, exceeding early expectations and quickly securing a strong foothold in the market. Within nine months, Moontower achieved industry-leading preleasing levels, surpassing anticipated velocity and setting new benchmarks for price-per-square-foot.
Moontower differentiated itself from existing product in the market by embracing the artist community from design to marketing and programming. The result is incredible leasing success and a new bar for experiential living in Phoenix, downtown and beyond.