Melbourne

Convention

Bureau

An overview

The Melbourne Convention Bureau (MCB) is dedicated to marketing Melbourne and regional Victoria as a leading business events destination and offers support with business development, bidding and sales, convention servicing, marketing, and partnerships.

The pain points

The bureau had found itself lagging behind in the market with an outdated visual brand and international/national competitor bureaus utilising more engaging marketing strategies to attract business to their respective cities and countries. The internal marketing and brand team was tasked with changing the status quo to elevate MCB’s, at the time, fossilised market position. As MCB’s sole full-time designer and brand guardian for three and a half years (2017 - 2020), I was heavily invested in MCB’s brand refresh and subsequent market roll out as well as the transition and digitisation of official bids, presentations and a majority of in-market communications.

A new brand strategy

  • ‘Great Minds Live Here’ brand refresh across all MCB B2B and B2C communications and trade show activations.

  • Enhanced MCB’s brand presence in market through digitisation of traditional media and creation of fluid, user-friendly touch points for MCB partners and bid representatives.

  • Enhanced the bidding process through responsive bid websites, accessory and informative micro sites, interactive and animated case studies, digital touring itineraries and interactive digital PDFs.

  • Investigated and adopted new methods of delivery to strengthen market position and attract international associations interest to bid to host an event in Melbourne.

  • Maintained an accessible library of curated and professional MCB branded assets, images, presentations and templates for internal staff and MCB partner marketing use.

  • Localised communications, bids and presentations to target markets.

Great Minds Live Here - A brand evolution

Oversaw and implemented the brand evolution from the previous rigid ‘Corporate Red’ formal branding (below left) to the refreshed ‘Great Minds Live Here’ (below centre, right), a more personable, identifiable and more outgoing, consumer friendly market brand. The new messaging was succinct, speaking directly to the innovative and creative duality of Melbourne and Victoria. The core brand mechanism, the 'X Grid’  spoke to the dynamic lifestyle of Melbourne/Regional Victoria and the discovery of something new around every corner. Paired with striking new destination and business events imagery briefed to local photographers, vibrant and emotive colour gradients, a clean typography hierarchy and a layout design that respected the white space, Great Minds greatly elevated Melbourne Convention Bureau's professional and visual standing and presence in the Australian and International business tourism sector.

A transformation into a forward-thinking bureau

  • Full digitisation of the bidding process to include user friendly, responsive microsites, itineraries and case studies

  • Enhanced MCB’s social media comms with curated content which included success stories, case studies, hero bid wins and engaging video content.

  • Designed the Melbourne Virtual Site Visit - a visual ‘create your journey’ tool, popular with Planners and delegate boosting campaigns.

  • Created animated web banners and held conference case studies for targeted marketing campaigns

  • Curated MCB’s online image content hub for internal and external marketing.

See more here

Brand Outcomes

Positive reception and feedback of MCB’s refreshed in market presence and well received marketing tools for MCB partners and clients. These new tools included animated case studies, microsites, enhanced and interactive marketing publications and a comprehensive online image share hub system.

Designed the ‘Melbourne Virtual Site Visit’, a mixed reality and VR experience featuring over 30 Melbourne venues, hotels and attractions to influence international decision makers to choose Melbourne for their next event. Recognised globally at the Skift Global Forum in New York, being awarded ‘Best AR, VR or Mixed Reality Experience’.

Created the Uncover Melbourne sub-brand, a premium service and partner offering elevating MCB’s trade presence at The Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Event (AIME) connecting business event buyers, sellers and media from all around the world. See the campaign creative here.