Most creative marketing strategy

Pick up a beer mat in a Swansea bar and you might find that it is not advertising the local brew, but instead City Living. City Living is affordable rented housing in the city centre marketed by Swansea Housing Association not as social housing but, like private housing, as a lifestyle. The judges were impressed by the way the association has taken some of the commonly perceived negatives of urban living and turned them to its advantage. For example, it acknowledges that parking spaces are in short supply and so offers a car-sharing club, City Wheels, with a pool of Smart Cars that double up as Swansea Housing Association staff pool cars during weekdays when they are not needed by residents. The housing association's name has been deliberately kept out of the limelight during the campaign to allow the City Living brand and lifestyle to take prominence. The strategy, which was devised in-house, has created a strong local recognition that housing association homes are an option for a wider range of people and the number of working applicants on the housing association's waiting list has grown from 31% to 51%.

Second
Miller Homes

Miller Homes has tapped into the power of the internet to turn the marketeer's art into a science. It commissioned design consultancy navyblue to give its website a strong presence, and is using the site to provide information about specific developments and individual plots that can closely match buyers' criteria. Potential buyers registering on the site fill in their details on the profiling system and then receive updates about developments that match their needs. When a new development is uploaded to the site, the system emails all registered users whose profiles match those of plots within that development. Miller Homes can also create specific emails about special offers and incentives. Since the new site was launched in April, visitor numbers have risen by about 7000 a month.

Third
Crest Nicholson Residential

"Strong, dependable and bespoke" was the verdict focus groups gave for Crest Nicholson Residential's proposed rebranding, carried out with creative consultancy Ferrier & Associates and completed in January last year. That verdict has since been confirmed as the company estimates that sales resulting directly from advertising now stand at 65% – a big leap from the 10-20% pre-rebranding figure. The company felt that staff involvement in the process was key to its success and as such, each office appointed a champion to oversee implementation of the new identity.

they have understood that what they are selling is not a unit, but a lifestyle, and they are doing it in a creative way

Fourth
Bowey Homes

Visitor levels to showhomes have more than doubled in a year, thanks to Bowey Homes' rebranding. The company has swapped its old logo for new, simpler lettering in a two-colour green box. Sales literature has been brought up-to-date and is more image-led, while the sales centres are clean and clear in design and feature strong lifestyle images.