TerraForge Communities – Sub-brand Watermark

BACKGROUND: TerraForge Communities, a developer based in Richmond, Virginia, hired PUNCH in 2005 to create the brand identity and all advertising and marketing materials for southwest Chesterfield County’s first master-planned, mixed-use community, Watermark. The unique and modern aspects of mixed-use communities offer significant appeal, tax benefits, and efficiency to homeowners of varying incomes and stages in life.

CHALLENGE: With two other mixed-use communities planned for Chesterfield, though neither in the southwest part of the county, it was important to distinguish Watermark distinctly and clearly, from its competition. TerraForge asked us to conceive the Watermark Web site in a wholly different way. We needed to create a Web site for a “blue sky” community, convey all that is to come (not even broken ground when we began work), and still excite business owners and homeowners to lease, invest, or buy into Watermark—without using the very typical stock images of representative houses, landscapes, and activities as the primary graphical elements of the Web site.

EXECUTION: PUNCH proposed the idea of using animated illustrations to tell the Watermark story on the Web site. We created animations as well as static illustrations of various unique outdoor features of Watermark that allowed Web site visitors to get a strong impression of the size and character of Watermark, before we even began talking about homes.

IMPACT: Beautiful photography of model homes is very often the centerpiece of builder advertising, so this approach was truly risky and unconventional. TerraForge loved it. The site is certainly getting noticed by the builders at Watermark and prospects. PUNCH has also expanded target audience access to the Web site through e-mail marketing and interactive Web ads on local Web sites, as well as brochures and outdoor advertising.