Transforming a start up brand into a challenger brand.

Transforming a start up brand, into a challenger brand.

Why change anything?

The company was one of the first flat fee real estate agencies in South Africa, and they used their flat fee to disrupt a stagnant industry. South Africa went through some significant changes economically, and with those changes the company pivoted in a tough, uncertain market. They updated their pricing to a commission structure. This impacted the brand quite significantly, as pricing was one of their key differentiators. Marketing focussed their efforts on digital lead generation, speaking to the products, services and a few remaining unique selling points. Campaigns, tone, design, messaging and culture broke into fragments. The brand and the people working for the company were moving towards an existential crisis, and it was showing.

A design thinking brand project kicked-off to establish a business case, as well as do preliminary research on historical campaigns.

Kick off:

The business case kicked off with a brand workshop with the full design and content guild. It was loosely based on Tommaso Nervegna's - Design Thinking Workshop for Branding. It included an internal evaluation of all current collateral and strategies.

We gathered all the customer needs, the problems that they are trying to solve and the tasks they are trying to perform or complete. We gathered all the negative emotions and undesired costs, situations and risk which the customer could experience before, during and after getting the job is done. And finally we gathered all the customer’s benefits and desires, and may span personal, functional, or economical etc.

We also mapped out the company’s brand personality so we could see where we needed to pivot in our brand strategy.

From this workshop we discovered that we were very product and service heavy. We need to slide the pendulum over to progressive, not old school or corporate. This doesn't mean that we're unprofessional, but that we break rules to be smarter. We respect people as people, not as clients or numbers. Facts about our products should be represented alongside our culture and style - which is part of our service.

We talk numbers in a very accessible, personable, and transparent way, empowering our customers with understandable data. Nothing is too complicated simply because we understand our business well enough to do it effortlessly.

We're not safe and definitely not boring. We're funny, witty and have the brazen confidence to be stylish, without being a dick about it. We are also slightly cheeky about the outdated real estate industry - resonating with the frustration of our audiences. We're not rude or disrespectful, but we're not afraid to call out deficiencies in our business.

We're technologically advanced and quite progressive.

“People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” - Simon Sinek

History was repeating itself, we understood our product and our services, but we had no reason 'why'. Is this how we want to customers to think about Leadhome? We needed a purpose where product was not our sole purpose, but our beliefs. And beliefs are not organisational structure, technology or innovation. Beliefs are human. We need to identify our beliefs in order to imbue our products, services and design language with meaning.

Understanding our culture and our values:

Before we looked at our customers we wanted to understand the internal stories of the company a little better. Through interviews and questionnaires we affinity sorted through all of the research:

We summarised the results into four categories. Prospective employees, current employees, customers and unsupported customers.

Internal research - Prospective employees:

Whenever someone showed interest to work at the company, we asked them why they wanted to be part of our team. Companies usually ask this question to establish if the prospective candidate knows anything about the company, but this was also an insight into how the brand was perceived from a prospective employee. Something that heavily affects the companies hiring strategy.

Internal research - Current employees:

We have a talented, autonomous, diverse bunch of people who each had a memorable story about the company. We interviewed them, and their stories were not only beautiful but also quite insightful. Telling our story is a critical part of building our brand. It will help shape how people view us and forge the connection between our customers and us.

External research - Our customers

We chatted to the company’s buyers, sellers, landlords, developers and customers who were in our unsupported areas about their perspective on us.

We sorted the keywords from our research to establish patterns:

These patterns summarised the company's core cultural values - they are:

Market context and competitor research in summary:

1) Sellers want to sell fast, at an honest price, while buyers want to buy properties in acceptable condition, at an honest price. Agents charge between 5% - 8% of property value, and that’s fine, but not when there’s little tangible return. Agents charge between 5% - 8% of property value, and that’s fine, but not when there’s little tangible return.

2) The market is saturated with old inherited businesses that are primarily competing on market reach - mostly through premium brand positioning and costly traditional high ‘touch’, high service, agent/client relationship based models.

3) The only disruption is represented by very small time entrepreneurs who see and want to change a broken system of inefficiencies, poor customer service and a protracted and expensive process that millions of consumers suffer through each year. This minimal kind of disruption results in high complacency and low innovation by the establishment, despite significant inefficiencies in their service.

The SA real estate industry is stagnant, stuck in time, and profiting off our lack of choice. Service, expertise, and price have been monopolised, rendering people powerless during their biggest moments of change.

Which leads us to the following powerful insight:

The company was already capitalising on this insight business-wise and operationally by targeting the right gaps.

Brand positioning

Apart from this, we knew that what the company stood for and how it was communicated was their biggest untapped potential. Up till now, they’ve been polite and factual.

But seeing that we needed to differentiate the brand, we capitalised on our market insights by crafting an official philosophy about what Leadhome believes.

Agents of change is a powerful message, and one that is appropriate to the company. Internally it describes our mission to be the face of change in the real estate industry. But for South Africans buying and selling property, change takes on a different meaning entirely.

Change happens to our customers all the time, but at key life events, major change often accompanies a change in property, which can be exciting as it can be traumatic.

Leadhome’s responsibility of making a major life change as smooth as possible during moments of intense stress is undeniable. And we must do whatever is in our power to get it right.

But as if this wasn’t enough, if they were to embody change, they needed to sound like it. They needed to up their tone game - starting by refining the company’s new voice and tone philosophy, that isn’t just a copy thing, but should rather run through everything they do.

Their universe - the customer:

They need to attract customers that share the company's fundamental beliefs. And as a challenger brand, they have lots of that meaning, but had been way too conservative. With the fragmented approach to marketing since the price pivot, the target audiences opened up to resemble a spray and pray approach.

Some of us might know this, but it’s well worth repeating. A challenger brand is a business that is neither a market leader nor a niche brand, that is categorised by ambitions beyond conventional resources, and by an intent to bring change to an industry. Virgin Atlantic, BrewDog, Tyrells, innocent, Uber and Airbnb, are some examples.

With audiences similar to ours, we took a close look at Airbnb and Spotify speak to their audiences in a relatable tone. The introduction is genuine and it reflects their tone, story and why they do things. They fundamentally and completely understand themselves as companies. They understand their customers, their behaviour, wants and needs.They create memorable moments by being empathetic and having real, identifiable conversations like real people.

The company's primary customer looks like this: 30 - 45 / 50 year-old people. These elder millennials or young gen-xers are first time sellers and buyers they are strategically important as they serve as the initial hook into an entire lifecycle of potential brand advocacy. They are a small but growing segment that questions the boundaries of tradition, embraces change, and expects a company that has values beyond features - a company that stands for something meaningful.

Where other brands can afford to have a mediocre brand presence, as an underdog revolutionary challenging the status quo and driving change, we absolutely cannot.

People who fall outside of our primary customer is not excluded from our business, but we are not speaking to them directly in our marketing. The company does not want to alienate or offend secondary or tertiary customers.

Testing previous campaigns and messaging with our customers:

We tested the safe kind of branding the company had been running with, and people got the impression they were trying to be interesting and different.

But they weren’t buying their messaging like they should, and certainly not at the rate at which we needed them to. We didn’t want the company to look kind of interesting and like they were trying. We wanted them to to be industry leaders.

So we had to evaluate if the current brand ci was inline with the new brand strategy and positioning, before we approached a new over arching brand campaign.

Visual identity:

We opted to create a digital brand book. To make it as easy as possible to understand the brand as well as to navigate and use their visual guide. We hold the great responsibility of practising design to the highest standard. From what we look like on paper - to the screen and beyond. This is why this brand identity is built from a design system that is well researched, well documented, and easy to use. Here are some highlights:

The logo:

Even though we take pleasure in great aesthetics, we pride ourselves in doing things for a reason. Defined clear space as well as placement in relation to other content all help to make our logo as recognisable as possible at all sizes and in all contexts. It maintains ownable characteristics while allowing for perfect clarity at any size on any application.

We have sharpened our edges to increase legibility, to simplify, as well as increase clarity. And seeing as we are in the movie of simplifying things, the cut-out has been added to create a simple monochrome application.

Brandmark Construction:

Our brandmark is based on a simple shape with a cut-out. It represents a home folded from paper. It speaks to transforming paper into a 3D space and echoes how we manipulate the digital space. At the risk of sounding like we’re quoting a famous scientist on relativity, here is the simplified version: We aim to simplify your real estate experience.

Glyph Construction

Our glyph has been manually kerned with extended ascenders, defined clear space allowing for perfect legibility at any size on any application.

Logo Construction

Clear space between the brandmark and the glyph is equal to double the spacing between the ‘d’ and ‘h’ of the glyph.

True colours:

Our brand biggest strength up to date has been our colours. It is how our customers differentiate us from the rest of the noise. With growing up comes a little bit more maturity. We remain the same, but we don’t simply do things to be different, we do things because it means something.

Our crisp primary colours echo the bright palette of dawn. The beginning of a new day, when the sun breaks through the shadows of the night in warm yellow and clear corals. We use storm and white to support neutral content, while coral and yellow are selectively associated with meaningful moments and important information.

The palette for our secondary colours draws inspiration from the day that follows dawn. These accent colours are found throughout a day at home under the big, bright African sky. Warm greys and blues assist the primary palette in lacing all that we do with meaning.

Typography the sauce

The official brand font is Source Sans Pro. It's a simple typeface, congenial and easy to read, as well as optimised for small devices and bad light. And it’s an open source font, making it easier for people to work with the brand.

Photography

Say ‘nope’ to imagery used as space-filler or as superficial decoration.

It represents the brand with a distinct, consistent, and proprietary visual language, creating an emotional connection with both internal and external audiences. We appreciate simplicity. And we build on how home feels.

Property Photography

Property photos should be shot by a professional using a short focal length. Wide-angle shots that capture a lot of real estate must have a crisp focus on all details. Camera angles should echo the perspective of someone walking into the space.

People Photography

It is important to know how the photographs will be applied. In what context will they be viewed? Plan the format of each photo with the final application in mind. Photographs are one our primary tools to visually communicate.

Illustration:

When we can't find the words or the appropriate photographs, we turn to illustration. Sometimes you have to draw something to explain it. And we pride ourselves on our distinct visual language.

We value consistency and simplicity. Colour is used to support illustrations and vector devices. We allow the angles in our logo inform our angles and lines in our illustrations.

The use of isometric illustrations must always be deliberate. We consider everything we say and do. So, the illustration must be meaningful and help the viewer understand content better.

Some more illustration examples:

Full digital brand book v.2

For the full digital brand guide click here. You will also find a nice summary on the brand positioning, our values and the company's beautiful origin story.

Knowing how we look, what we sound like, who our customers are is just the beautiful start to our brand campaign and messaging

A brand campaign pitch:

Brand awareness is creating memorable moments by being empathetic to our customer’s cause and encouraging them our way.

We wanted one strong memorable tagline that represented our culture, tone and above all 'Agents of change.' The company is changing and we need a strong, meaningful, memorable catchphrase that resonates with our values of precipitating and embracing change. A phrase that strikes contrary to our very corporate and traditional competition in a way that’s both ambitious and playful.

Strategic messaging:

One of many learnings from our research was that it had to be positive. Putting a ‘No’ in front of a pain point would not represent us well. We looked at many options, weighing up old and new:

One phrase stood out head and shoulders above the rest...

Level up!

The employees are ever changing and adapting. They are are levelling up.

The company is building the world’s best end-to-end real estate experience by using tech, data and human insights to transform their customers’ complicated real estate nightmare, into a next level singular streamlined experience.

The customers are levelling up. They constantly move through new stages in their real estate journey, as well as in their lives.

We are here to empower them to embrace big scary moments of change.

The way of work design thinking cycle is: Empathise, research, ideate, prototype, test, implement and repeat. So we tested the messaging internally to see if the employees would adopt such messaging...

+ "For me it means to grow and to empower oneself to be better at something. Move out of comfort zone and drive to be the best." - LS

+ "To elevate one's perspective and expectations." - G

+ "Identifying your shortcomings and raising your efforts in being a person of action and living life to your full potential. You surpassed the previous level and rose to the next one with new challenges and opportunities." - C

+ "My first thoughts would be to "Speak openly and honestly" - I think i get this from the phrase "I am going to level with you". My second thought would be to improve or progress." - B

+ "A form of progression that normally means you are better/stronger than you were before. An increase in power, ability, skill, knowledge, personal best milestone, etc. Access to a new skills, abilities, perks, and new areas to explore (not just in the gaming sense)." - E

Awareness application - Level up!:

Out of home application - Level up!:

The current out of home print items were not in line with the new brand. It didn’t fit in with our strategy anymore. We wanted to consider our research and apply our learnings. We wanted it to stand out from all the competitor boards currently on the market.

We have to remember that most applications do not live in isolation. They have many things to support them. We should ensure that we establish which messages works best for each application, and on what channel.

Updating channels:

We need to update our posts on Instagram to reflect our tone and brand more accurately:

COVID-19:

Covid-19 hit South Africa straight after this Level up! brand campaign pitch. The enormity of a pandemic and its social impact put this pitch on ice before it could be properly tested and implemented. The company decided to use all of the brand work up until the parent brand tagline: 'Agents of change'. The messaging is more inline with their customers and the pressures they face in the current market.

Current channel audit:

Do a full audit of all the current collateral, and create a channel strategy to roll our the correct collateral to the correct channel.

Slow and steady release:

As this is a not a redesign and only a brand refresh, we will slowly release all assets into their respective environments and channels. The website www.leadhome.co.za will slowly start migrating to the brand refresh as the new design system is fleshed out.

The company is currently busy with their comms strategy. And one of the first applications of the new brand has been an emailer and a few social posts:

The project map

The roadmap:

Because the company is tech-driven they've adopted the agile methodology when it comes to their way of work. They are very much a people-driven, autonomous workforce respecting the importance of culture, whilst scaling and adapting. This influenced the way the project rolled out, as one guild over two squads initiated the brand project. It was quite difficult to transition a traditional marketing team into a tech way of work.

The start up culture meant that projects needed to be shipped ultra fast. There is a company in-joke where people often tell new joiners that four Leadhome years equals one human year ie. the company moves four times faster than traditional companies.

This project took a total of three months or 5 sprints to be more accurate. In our planning session we created and communicated a shared vision at the team and team-of-teams level for what the company would build including all dependencies. We visualised our outcomes on a roadmap.

Credits:

Full project:

Inge Malan - Team lead, Project lead, Art director, Illustrator, Designer and Copywriter.
Zaheera Ismail Jameson - Lead brand strategist, UX lead, Designer and Copywriter.

Side projects:

Patrick Glynn - Project lead: Employee story research project.
Zandré Coetzer - Project lead: Personas, Designer and Illustrator.
Jessica Franks - Data Scientist: Persona research
Romy Zwiers - Project lead: Brand strategy design thinking project.
Gerda le Roux - Proofreader.

Nicole Crawford and Nkosiphile Masimula - Full brand audit.
Anja van Staden - Campaign pitches: Designer

Bloopers ;)

Yup, there has been a lot of learnings along the way. Here are some highlights:

We're not shy about our mistakes. The trick is to fail fast, and learn quickly. Below is a broad overview of our failures, a total of 7 archived pages on our Figma file.

Brand book version 1...

Campaign ideas. v1 , v2, v3, v4 etc...

We were clearly considering and testing some colour upgrades...

And we were playing with squiggly things, thinking they made the brand seem more human:

But the research quickly reminded us about a legibility issue we had in 2019. So squiggly things got nipped in the bud. So we moved on to paper. Paper was very short lived. Stylistically it was such a symbolic dream. We loved it hard, and then we left it.