A BIG CITY MAKEOVER FOR A SUBURBAN BRAND
Branding, Creative Development, Account and Project Management
The
brief
Under the leadership of its agency of record, one of the largest real estate companies in the Tri-State area was seeking to update their brand identity for its urban offering in the large metropolitan markets. While they’ve operated in both markets for some time, the brand has been practically an unknown entity to both brokers and their clients. Those who were aware of the brand in these markets perceived it as an outdated, out of touch suburban brand and an obscure player both in terms of offering as well as look and feel.
The
work
Our mission was to help the agency of record build the brand’s reputation and market share where it lags behind perceived innovators such as Compass and reinvented industry lifers like Douglas Elliman. To achieve this goal, a new and refreshed brand aimed at an urban market with different needs from suburbia had to be implemented.
The new visual and verbal identity had to speak to both prospective and current B2B and B2C audiences; targeting brokers (B2B) and buyers (B2C) in each market, while not alienating the core suburban audience developed over several decades.
The brand idea was born from an extensive research and strategy phase with the aim of finding ownable white space that truly represented the value proposition of the company in a cluttered and often mistrusted industry. brandlove project managed and lead the visual identity portion with a seasoned creative team helmed by an Art Director.
From the initial high-level concept provided by the agency of record, our Art Director and team built a visual identity system that speaks to the brand architecture, history, and its true values. In addition to the identity system, we also designed a suite of sales collateral as well as website, advertising, and reporting templates while working closely with the in-house marketing team to provide brand guardianship on the internal toolkit aimed at agents and brokers.
The results
The result was such a success that the visual work is now being applied on a master brand and ancillary brand level throughout the company. The initial brand refresh is scheduled to launch in this year with the master brand and ancillary brands to follow.