Scaling Awareness & Audience Growth Through Event-Led Digital Strategy

The Simonds Homes 2026 Australian Tennis Open campaign demonstrated that event-led media can act as a powerful audience growth lever, not just a promotional tactic.

The Challenge

Simonds Homes partnered with Sonar to activate a national digital campaign around a key event moment, designed to expand brand reach, engage new audiences, and strengthen consideration among first home buyers. During a time when competitors go quiet, we took advantage of a softer messaging to cut through the clutter.

The campaign leveraged a multi-channel approach across paid media, influencer, and content-led strategies, shifting focus from pure lead generation to building scalable awareness and future demand.

The campaign needed to deliver impact within a short activation window, while operating in a category where:

  • Demand cycles are long and complex
  • Immediate conversion is not always the primary outcome
  • Audience trust and education are critical to influence decision-making

Additionally, the activity required:

  • Expanding beyond core geographic markets
  • Engaging first home buyers earlier in their journey
  • Balancing brand awareness vs performance efficiency
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The Solution

Sonar designed and executed an integrated, full-funnel campaign — combining reach, engagement, and audience development.

1. Scalable Reach Strategy

A Reach & Frequency model was deployed across key platforms to:

  • Maximise cost-efficient audience scale
  • Control media costs during competitive periods
  • Deliver consistent, sequenced messaging

This approach became the foundation of the campaign’s ability to rapidly build awareness at scale.

2. Multi-Channel Paid Media Mix

Channels were deployed based on their role in the customer journey:

  • Meta → efficient mass reach
  • TikTok → high engagement and attention
  • Pinterest → mid-funnel consideration (particularly female audiences)
  • Reddit → highly efficient attention and awareness

Each channel played a distinct role, creating a layered ecosystem of awareness and engagement rather than isolated activity.

3. Influencer-Led Content Strategy

Influencer content was integrated to drive relatability and trust with first home buyers.

  • Content focused on education, insights, and real-life scenarios
  • Positioned Simonds within the broader home ownership conversation
  • Prioritised native, platform-first storytelling over promotional messaging

 

This approach proved critical in bridging the gap between awareness and action.

4. Data-Led Audience Targeting

Advanced audience strategies were applied to improve relevance and efficiency:

  • Lookalike audiences based on first home buyer signals
  • Retargeting to capture high-intent users
  • Cultural and localised segmentation to improve engagement

This ensured the campaign reached the right audiences, not just more audiences.

Key Learnings

  1. Awareness Drives Future Demand

Campaigns focused on reach and engagement play a critical role in building pipeline — even if immediate lead efficiency is lower than BAU.

  1. Influencer Content Outperforms Traditional Creative

Content that feels useful, relatable and native consistently outperformed promotional messaging in both engagement and conversion signals.

  1. Platform Roles Matter

Each platform contributed differently:

  • TikTok → attention and engagement
  • Meta → efficient reach and scale
  • Pinterest → deeper consideration
  • Reddit → highly efficient awareness
  1. Audience Priming Improves Conversion

Engaging audiences early, before asking them to convert, significantly improves downstream performance.

  1. Not All Traffic Is Equal

High click volumes do not always translate to meaningful engagement — reinforcing the need to optimise for quality, not just volume.

Looking Ahead

Future campaigns will build on this foundation by:

  • Layering in stronger lead capture mechanisms
  • Expanding high-performing audience segments
  • Scaling influencer-led and native content formats
  • Continuing to refine cross-channel optimisation

What This Means

This campaign highlights a broader shift:

From campaign-led marketing → to audience-led growth systems. By connecting media, creative, audience, and data, brands can:

  • Build scalable demand pipelines
  • Improve efficiency over time
  • Create more meaningful engagement with customers earlier in their journey
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