campaign for a city centre redevelopment targeted at young, first-time buyers.
Long-established client Ocea engaged Make Studio on their latest development, St Pancras House, to support them with their full brand and marketing strategy. The scheme, based in Basingstoke city centre, was the renovation of an existing commercial building and its transformation into twenty contemporary residential apartments. Ocea’s prime focus was on raising the market value of the properties to achieve maximum return and, as specialists in premium property marketing, Make Studio was selected as the ideal agency partner.
We needed to identify the key value proposition of St Pancras House in order to achieve maximum sales within a short timeframe. The brief involved fully researching and understanding the local target audience to create a fitting premium brand identity, marketing strategy, internal and external CGI images, lifestyle photography, floor plans, printed brochures, signage and social media content.
Intelligent design
Hampshire-based, leading property developers Ocea Life have created a luxury living apartment building from what was once a commercial property in Basingstoke City Centre. The development benefits from the Government’s Help-to-Buy Scheme, assisting first time buyers to purchase their own home. The homes have been intelligently designed, making the most of the space and large windows, flooding each home with light and views of the surrounding area. St Pancras offers buyers premium living at an affordable price, but with some comprise on floor space.
To inspire and engage
At the core of our approach was the creation of an authentic story, as we knew that the brand identity needed to appeal to a young, first-time-buyer market. We also needed to communicate a transparent, honest vision of the apartments to ensure that prospective buyers understood the premium lifestyle benefits of St Pancras, but also the apartments size compromise.
Research into Ocea’s previous marketing approach showed that, historically, less emphasis had been placed on the key lifestyle benefits of their developments and a more informative, specification-based approach had been taken.
Looking to reverse this trend we brought the added-value facilities to the forefront of our communication, aiming to drive well-informed, qualified buyers to make enquiries.
Following immersive research into the local market and the first time buyer audience, and by better understanding the future plans for St Pancras House, we selected a premium level brand identity and marketing approach. With our initial communication, we prioritised the large-scale floor plans alongside interior CGI’s to provide a true representation of the layouts and living spaces. Both showcased the quality and detail of finish, and captured the imagination with the sense of style.
Underpinning the rollout
With deeper understanding of the target market, first-time buyers aged between 23-32, we looked to current fashion typography and branding for inspiration. The final brand mark utilises the initials from the building’s existing name, ‘SPH’, and this iconic, memorable approach formed the basis of the new identity and was subsequently rolled out through all communication.
The production of the development’s full marketing collateral included a high- end set of brochures produced on colorplan paper stock and featuring high contrast white foil and metallic copper ink throughout. To evocatively represent the apartment’s living presentation we produced a number of CGI’s, as well as external imagery CGI’s to showcase the buildings frontage.
With these assets in hand to evoke St Pancras House’s identity we developed the complete marketing rollout approach.
The end-to-end marketing campaign, designed to create awareness and influence within the target audience, began with the creation of social and digital assets including online advertisements. We also focused on the development’s central location in Basingstoke, with a high volume of passing commuters, and maximised on the sales opportunity through external flags, hoarding and internal showroom signage.
A relationship cemented
The sales team immediately reported a high volume of qualifying enquiries, with a number of initial apartment sales secured within the first week of launch. All twenty apartments went onto to be sold, exceeding both the sales timeframe and sales value targets. Our approach, of highlighting the physical property reality through photo-real CGI, resulted in a truly connected experience for prospective buyers. We created a seamless journey through the interior images connecting with the brochures and hoardings, and finishes and stylings replicated in the show home. Throughout this project we exceeded our clients expectations and, ultimately, secured Make Studios position as preferred creative and marketing supplier to Ocea.
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