Developing a new model and culture for property management in retirement housing: a three year consultancy project working on positioning, naming, identity, behaviours, communications and thought leadership.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
Helicon was the operational platform developed by PegasusLife, responsible for the management of all of its buildings. At the time the retirement sector was synonymous with very poor service provision and in some cases quite unethical business practices. PegasusLife knew that the property management aspect of their business was fundamental to its success and so Helicon was created as part of the overall category reshaping project the business had embarked upon, with a focus on transparency, trust and delivery of a high quality lived experiences for residents day to day.
THE ROLE OF THE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANY
The management company is central to the delivery of a brand and a proposition within the retirement sector. This is the team who are responsible for how all the things that really matter to people on a day to day basis are taken care of – looking after the communal areas, operating the amenities, delivering the service offer together with the repairs and maintenance of apartments. Perhaps even more significantly however, they are the leading influencers in the culture of the building – whether it ‘feels’ like a nice, happy environment, whether people are enjoying living there, how residents are relating to the staff on-site, to one another and to the wider community and neighbourhoods of which they are part. Done well, property management can be a catalyst for friendship and connection, creating the glue that holds communities together and supporting people to forge friendships and the build the spirit of neighbourliness. Done poorly, it can become a source of misery for people – causing friction between neighbours and significantly impacting quality of life if broken things aren’t repaired or problems aren’t solved in a timely and efficient manner.
DEVELOPING THE BRAND
The task of property management is two fold – on the one hand it’s about delivering the nuts and bolts of day to day life – i.e. the smooth running of services, fixing of problems, ongoing communications around what is happening on site. It also plays a significant role in the less tangible but ultimately critical aspects of life in a development – making people feel looked after, supporting social interaction and nurturing a sense of community amongst the residents.
The branding for Helicon needed to be able to deliver on both aspects of the offer and to help to re-set the existing perceptions of property management companies within retirement. It was designed to be under-stated and editorial in its tone, communicating the trusted, transparent positioning that was critical to the company’s success and able to move seamlessly between presenting data and financial information alongside engaging and entertaining content capable of inspiring a sense of community and activity.
THE DIGITAL PLATFORM
Central to the task of delivering a high quality service offer and evidencing the open, transparent, model was the digital platform the residents would use in order to know what was happening day to day within the buildings, see how their money was being spent and to be able communicate easily with the operational team. With an older audience in mind, it was critical that the app was intuitive and easy to use and that the business was able to seamless blend it’s in person communications offer with the type of tools and technical capabilities that only a digital platform could facilitate.
BRAND EXPERIENCE
An important part of the marketing activity for each development was to bring to life aspects of the experience of living in the developments (delivered by the management company) ahead of people being able to move into the buildings. This was achieved by hiring the on-site teams ahead of site openings and creating ‘experiential hubs’ where events could be held and the team could start to build the sense of community for the development’s future residents, long before the site was open.
TEAM
As with all aspects of PegasusLife project, we were members of a much wider team that included designers, experiential specialists, digital developers, and so on. On the branding specifically, we worked in partnership with creative director Mark Smith.