Ottawa, like many Canadian cities, is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. In response, Ottawa Community Housing Corporation (OCH) brought a new, affordable housing concept to the local rental marketplace, made possible by Federal, Provincial, and Municipal government investors. As a brand known as a subsidized housing provider, OCH was about to enter the rental marketplace with other commercial vendors. This foray into the competitive rental market with a new concept in affordable rental properties would require significant strategic marketing and brand support.
OCH’s flagship property in this space was a new 140-unit apartment and townhome property at 811 Gladstone Avenue, completed in the fall of 2021. Their objective was to rent all available units to qualified tenants by the completion date.
Accurate was hired early in the project’s development. We provided OCH with a comprehensive marketing plan that provided the roadmap to a successful launch of their first competitive rental product.
Our first step was to develop the name of the property. Extensive research included an environmental scan of competitor brands, as well as a specific focus on a number of variables that would influence the creative process:
Ultimately, Mosaïq was selected from several naming options presented. Mosaïq reflects the project’s brand attributes to a tee. As a new community nestled between the culturally diverse neighbourhoods of Little Italy and Chinatown, the name Mosaïq is the perfect fit for a community designed to welcome tenants from all walks of life, ages, and ethnicities.
Top to bottom from left to right: Consultation document; close-up of illustration style; factsheet; summary, front & back; and social media assets.
As the project evolved, it also became clear to Accurate and OCH that their entry into the competitive rental marketplace would create brand confusion for the corporation. As the city’s largest subsidized housing provider, Mosaïq did not fit within their traditional portfolio. With plans on the horizon to bring multiple offerings like Mosaïq online over the next 10 years, it became apparent that a new ‘landlord’ brand name would be required to separate products like Mosaïq from OCH’s subsidized housing operations.
Once again, Accurate embarked on extensive research and brought several name options to the table. Ultimately, ARRIV Properties was selected. The name reflects many brand attributes. It creates a sense of home. Their properties will be places tenants ‘arrive’. Their offerings are also a new concept in the market, something that has ‘arrived’ on the Ottawa rental scene.
With the naming of the flagship property and corporate entity established, execution of Accurate’s comprehensive marketing plan began. Dubbed From Shovel to Move-In, the goal was to have Mosaïq fully leased by the end of the summer of 2021.
The plan included a stakeholder’s key messaging strategy map and analytic surveillance of the assets’ performance. Based on the construction timeline, it included a detailed phased approach to spending and outreach. The roadmap included an extensive array of tactics reaching across multiple paid and organic media channels.
The rollout of products consisted of a registration website, SEM landing pages, promotional videos, a multi-tiered SEM strategy and deployment, social media management of both owned and paid assets, marketing handouts including floor plans, hoarding street signage, model home staging, and fully integrated, customer-journey email campaigns.
Accurate knew this new concept in affordable living was perfectly timed. With an extreme shortage of rental stock, coupled with skyrocketing monthly rents, particularly in the downtown core, Mosaïq was positioned to be a success.
That said, the objective to fill 140 units by the summer of 2021 was a challenge given that the campaign only began in early 2021. Given that tenants had to qualify based on certain criteria, OCH targeted a goal of 1200 MailChimp submissions. This would give them an ample list to draw from to approve and sign tenants to leases.
Very quickly, that goal was met. A robust, multi-channel campaign using SEM, owned and paid social media. Our team monitored social media channels, answering questions about Mosaïq from potential applicants. All inquiries and traffic were directed to the registration website where MailChimp submissions were gathered and directed to a segmented list designed around customer journeys. By early summer 2021, we had achieved 1580 MailChimp submissions from highly qualified leads.
SEM Campaign #1 Results:
The first SEM campaign advertised the announcement of Mosaïq’s apartments and townhomes coming to Ottawa. We wanted to collect as many early-bird applicants as possible. Every time an applicant filled out the rental interest form on the website, we counted that as a conversion. Once a form was submitted, the applicant’s information was recorded in the MailChimp database. By the end of the campaign, this process would give OCH ample applicants to review.
SEM Campaign #2 Results:
The second SEM campaign announced the prices of the Mosaïq apartments and townhomes. We also launched a series of social media advertisements that also highlighted this information. This would allow us to target our market through Google and Social Media resulting in the most successful return on investment. We monitored the survey submissions bi-weekly and they rapidly started to increase. Along with managing Mosaïq’s digital marketing, we also responded to any questions on social media to further help applicants and increase the brand’s positive image. As mentioned previously, by the end of the campaigns we had surpassed the 1200 MailChimp goal by 380 submissions. We were notified that all apartments and townhomes now had a waitlist except for the barrier-free apartments.
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