For years Barratt has towered over its competitors in brand identity largely due to its television advertising. But this year Berkeley raised the stakes with a lifestyle-themed 30 second advert and Bryant Homes' new-look campaign is set to appear on a TV screen near you in the new year. Alex Smith finds out how and why homebuilders' are tuning in to TV advertising to build a brand.
Homebuilders in London and the South East cannot have missed the recent "My Berkeley" series of TV ads. The high production values, lifestyle content and scale of the £2m campaign raised industry eyebrows and consumer profile - Berkeley Homes claimed that as a result of the ads half a million people visited its website.

Berkeley Homes is confident that its advert will change homebuying habits; whether it will change the marketing spend of other homebuilders is less clear. Homebuilders have been happier advertising in the local press than on prime-time TV but there are signs that this maybe changing - in some companies at least.

Berkeley Homes' campaign helped push homebuilders' yearly spend on TV advertising to £3m, up 22% on the previous year (see Ad spend by media, page 26). A quarter of the industry's £12m marketing budget is now spent on TV, and although print is still the most popular media for advertising, the amount spent fell by 20% last year to £6.74m.

At least one other homebuilder is planning a large-scale TV ad campaign. Bryant Homes is placing £5m with M&C Saatchi for a television-led campaign which will see the advert having its first airing on Boxing Day.

The fact that the company has been advertising to a lesser degree on TV for the last four years suggests that it is confident that the extra spend will ultimately lead to more home sales.

Laurence Percival, creative and brand strategist at ad agency AMD, the company behind Berkeley's TV ads, says it is important for homebuilders to build brands, and that TV advertising is an effective way of doing this.

"If things take a downturn a strong brand will always survive. We want to add value to the Berkeley name and we think the TV adverts have given Berkeley kudos," he says.

Within 10 years homebuilders' brands will be like those of carmakers Percival believes. BMW is an example of what can be achieved with careful brand building, he added. "BMW was a young upstart in the early 1980s. Its ultimate driving machine adverts tuned into the lifestyle trends of the time and as a result Mercedes' share dwindled. BMW built a brand that has remained rock solid in a volatile market," he says.

Follow the brand

Marketing consultant and Building Homes contributor Malcolm Pitcher believes: "Housebuilders can get by with no brand as such while there are so few housebuilders that carry both a serious and differentiating brand proposition…but consumers are not stupid, they can often sense where the real priorities of the brand owner lie."

Through the Berkeley adverts AMD was keen to bring a sense of quality and individuality to the brand. "We wanted to give the impression that there is no such thing as a Berkeley home; rather there are homes for individuals. A father shown in a football sequence shot at the executive home was wearing a Brazilian football shirt - not something you would expect in an upmarket house. It was very unstaged," says Percival.

AMD believes that it has redefined what property advertising can be. "I definitely think that it will have an effect on competitors. It's crazy that the property market hasn't gone for the same sort of quality found in advertising by the likes of Nike and BMW," says Percival.

There are indications that Bryant Homes is thinking along the same lines and will use its Saatchi ads to reinforce a new brand image. "Housebuilders' adverts are like wallpaper," says Lorraine Morrissey, Bryant Homes' marketing director. "The brief was to do something outside the housebuilders' norm. It will be a very different campaign to reflect the changes in the company."

Cost barriers

Not everyone believes that TV advertising can provide a solution. Julian MacLeod, director at homebuilder MacLeod, believes TV campaigns are off limits to the majority of housebuilders because of the high costs involved.

"To advertise a particular site you need to rely on traditional marketing tools such as the local press and hoardings, especially when you bear in mind that the majority of purchasers will be living within five miles of your development," he says.

Ex ad-man MacLeod says brand advertising isn't specific and is therefore not so important for small to medium-sized homebuilders. "Berkeley Homes is magnificent at branding but it's a very expensive way of reaching your target market. Berkeley Homes is large enough to appeal to a sizeable proportion of the population in terms of age, range, geography and affordability," he adds.

James Ingram, business development director at BBDO Europe, part of advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers, is also sceptical about television's reach.

"TV ads have to target people who are not only ready to move but who are also willing to move into a new home. They are likely to go through an estate agent anyway so the advertiser is in danger of having a very small potential audience leading to a lot of wastage," he says.

Laing Homes and Redrow Homes are two of the larger homebuilders to express doubts about TV advertising. Laing joint managing director Chris Payne appreciates that TV is a good way to build a brand image and reach a wider audience but says the cost in relation to other forms of marketing is too high.

Redrow Homes group marketing manager Simon Bennett says: "We feel we can make better use of our budget elsewhere. A house is not an impulse purchase like a Mars bar; people won't buy a house after seeing an ad. A coffee table magazine does a lot more for us than a 30-second TV commercial. It conveys the whole Redrow Homes proposition and tells people what we're about. It's not just a slap-bang logo."

Redrow has though appeared on TV in a recent promotion with the Daily Express after the paper bought a Redrow home to give away in a competition. Bennett also sees new potential for TV advertising. "Digital TV will be the crux," he says. "There will be a lot of specialist home improvement shows and channels soon, which will be ideal for advertising homes."

High flying campaign

It is probably no coincidence that the UK's biggest housing brand has been advertising on TV since the 1970s. Barratt's helicopter adverts may have a very basic message but they are effective, according to Pitcher. "It's difficult to consistently apply the brand with TV advertising as it gets diluted quite quickly. The helicopter continually hits home a couple of points and although the ads have a limited budget they are widely applied. Barratt is the master of eking out a limited message and making it stick," he says.

Whether homebuilders use a branding or offer-led approach on TV, they must integrate these ads with other marketing tools, adds Pitcher. Berkeley Homes has taken stills from its TV ads and used them on hoardings and in the national press. The company also regards its website as a crucial aspect of the advertising strategy and the site address appears at the end of each ad.

AMD's Percival says that while the TV ads prick the interest of viewers the website allows them to find out more about Berkeley and its specific developments.

TV hits

AMD creative and brand strategist Laurence Percival has worked on many high-profile TV campaigns, from Nike to Berkeley Homes. Before taking the plunge into TV he suggests that the following rules of ad making should be borne in mind.

Dos
  • Make sure your ad is based around one strong central idea; crowd it with messages and it dies.
  • Great ads are inherently simple. Consumers don’t have time for a complicated explanation.
  • When you sit down to write an ad think all the obvious thoughts, then throw those away and start again.
  • Always try and create something you’ve never seen before.
  • Remember that the British public loves humour.
  • Never throw a big production budget at a poor idea; like a bad Hollywood film, it still won’t work.
Don’ts
  • Never use a style to try and replace an idea; just because it looks great on MTV doesn’t mean it’ll make a selling commercial.
  • When you write an advertisement, don’t think of your peers or advertising mates; think of the target family watching the ad on TV.
  • Don’t use a hastily chosen or inappropriate music track; it’ll sink the commercial.
  • Don’t research the ideas at storyboard; there’s no chance a focus group of consumers would have the experience to properly visualise your idea as a finished commercial. Go with your gut feel.

Source

Building Homes

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