Davies & Davies
An independent, market-leading estate agent based in Inner North London. They're now a multi-award winning agency and have been voted as the 7th best estate agent in the UK by the Best Estate Agency Guide.
Overview
Estate Agents don't have the best rep. You know it, we know it, Davies & Davies know it. But D&D do things differently. An ethical estate agency (yep, you read that right) whose mission is to make their customers lives easier. They're big on corporate social responsibility and go out of their way to support their local community. In fact, their proud history and connection to their local area is central to their identity. D&D needed a way to stand apart from the quagmire, shift perceptions and show the world why they're special. So we helped to position them as the alternative to rubbish estate agency: an ethical estate agency for jaded North Londoners.
Services
Brand Strategy, Brand Positioning + Planning, Brand Audits + Guardianship, Visual + Verbal Identity Design, Web Design + Development, UX + UI Design, Copywriting + Messaging, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Management, Content Creation, Campaign Creation + Design, Print + Digital Design, Packaging Design, Film + Photography, Illustration + Animation, Social Media Management.
The Challenge
- Low brand recall and heightened competition from large corporate agencies and online agents.
- Negative brand perception leading to low sales fees in order to remain competitive.
- Shrinking market and not enough market share.
- Outdated and unintuitive website causing low lead generation.
Barefaced Solution
- We took the brand back to its roots. Right back, in fact, to the 1920’s when it was first established. Utilising aesthetic references from this period we were able to create a marked point of difference against their shiny suited competitors. The look/feel of the re-brand is in stark contrast to the overtly modern designs of the digital and corporate entities saturating the market, helping D&D stand out for all the right reasons. It feels familiar and comforting. A marker of trust and a symbol of a long-standing heritage of success that helps act as a convincer to new customers. This grounds the brand and provides a platform from which they can confidently promote their ethical approach to estate agency.
- We re-positioned D&D as market leaders by developing an identity that inspires trust in their audience, whilst showcasing the quality of their services and their ties to the local community. This approach has helped them to win awards and become the UK’s 7th best estate agent. In turn they have increased their fees by up to 50%.
- We devised brand and marketing strategies to get D&D a bigger slice of a shrinking pie (we can’t control the market, but we can help you do more business within it). Each campaign was based upon one of two community-focused slogans we devised for the company: ‘established in 1927, we know this neighbourhood’ and ‘your local property nerds’.
- We developed a new website focused on exemplary user experience whilst being sympathetic to digital trends. It’s elegant yet modern, with high colour contrast and plenty of white space to ensure maximum readability. The result has been a big increase in traffic and leads, with increased page views per user and a lowered bounce rate.
≤50%
Increase in sales fees
+41%
Increase in valuation enquiries
+200%
Increase in website traffic
5
Awards won
“Barefaced Studios have helped us completely turn our business around.
By re-positioning our brand identity and creating brilliant marketing collateral for us, we’ve seen a massive increase in web traffic, Rightmove and Zoopla click through rates and client inquiries. The team are friendly, easy to work with and go above and beyond. I’d highly recommend them.”
– Mark Scales, Company Director
Your local property nerds
Davies & Davies believe it’s their job to make their customer’s lives easier whilst giving back to their local community. Their aim is to lead by example in order to create meaningful change in an industry plagued by poor practices and negative perceptions. No mean feat. D&D wanted to highlight their progressive yet warmhearted approach to estate agency, coupled with their longstanding local heritage, within their brand identity and marketing output. So we helped them build a community-focused brand with tonnes of personality.
The business was established in 1927, so we adapted traditional Art Deco design practices to produce their brand illustration and lettering. Their previous logo used a Times New Roman family typeface, the origins of which date back to 1929, which we felt was pretty fitting, so we simply smartened up the logo and created secondary and tertiary versions for flexibility. We then added clean brand fonts including their primary font ‘Gill Sans’, which was released in 1928. Coupled with a bold colour palette featuring a sophisticated dark grey and a vibrant, uplifting orange.
The brand voice and aesthetics were somewhat clichéd and we wanted to knock down some of the preconceived notions about estate agency, whilst playing upon these stereotypes and poking fun at the notorious reputation of the industry. So we developed a new brand language that uses a deliberately friendly and witty tone-of-voice, with subtle nods to early and mid century British slang. From here we were able to create humorous slogans, puns and beautiful artwork that clearly separates D&D from their competitors. Their new website is a thing of beauty, with a heavy focus on bespoke imagery, user experience and the client journey (click here to view it).
Their brand positioning is smarter and fresher. We’ve created and overseen strategies to help them increase their market share, improve brand recall and retain clients. They’re now a market-leading agent and were voted as the 7th best estate agent in the UK by the Best Estate Agents Guide. Moreover, our relationship with D&D has become pretty serious (they basically put a ring on it) and we’re proud to be their brand and marketing partner.