Real estate developer branding has a job most brands don't: it has to sell something that does not exist yet. In Dubai a project is sold from a plan. Buyers see the hoarding, the brochure, the sales gallery and the listing page long before they see a finished room, and each of those has to describe the same place. This note covers how a developer brand, a project brand and the pieces that sell them fit together.
Until handover, the brand is the product
A buyer signing for an apartment that is still a plot is buying a description. The hoarding says what the place will be. The brochure shows it at arm's length. The sales gallery lets them stand in a version of it. The website is what they forward to their family.
If those pieces describe different places, the buyer notices, even if they can't say why. Property branding is the work of making them describe one place, consistently, until the keys are handed over.
The developer brand and the project brand
A developer usually works with a project brand, or a master brand that several projects sit under, as well as its own name. It helps to be clear about which is which.
| Developer brand | Project brand | Master brand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speaks to | Buyers, investors and partners, over years | Buyers of one project | Buyers of several projects in one place |
| Lives for | As long as the company | Until the project sells and settles | As long as the community grows |
| Carries | Trust and track record | The idea of one place | A shared idea that each project adds to |
A brokerage has a simpler version of the same problem: its own name has to be recognised on every listing it posts, whoever built the project.
Naming the project
A project often needs a name before it needs anything else. When they do, naming is part of the branding work, and it is worth doing with the same care as the mark, because the name is what buyers repeat.
A mark that works at two distances
A real estate brand is read at two distances. On the hoarding and the signage it is seen from a moving car, so the mark, the name and the colour have to carry at that scale. In the brochure and the sales gallery it is read up close, by someone about to sign, so the typography, the plans and the photography have to hold the same idea at arm's length.
Design the mark for both from the start. A detail that looks fine on a screen can vanish on a hoarding or clog in print.
The hoarding, the brochure and the sales gallery
These three pieces do most of the selling before a project is built, and they should come from the same rules.
The hoarding announces the place to everyone who passes the plot. The brochure is the piece that leaves the sales gallery with the buyer, so it has to explain the project without anyone there to help. The sales gallery graphics turn the plan into something a buyer can walk through. When all three share the idea, the type and the pictures, a buyer meets one place three times.
The website and the listings
The website sits between the hoarding and the brochure. It should carry the same idea and the same words, with a project page that holds the place, the location, the plans and the enquiry. Our note on real estate website design covers it in detail.
The launch starts from the hoarding
A launch campaign and the social content that follows should start from the idea already on the hoarding, not invent a new one. The buyer who saw the plot on the way to work should recognise the campaign on their phone the same evening.
Real estate branding from our studio
Mustaqbal Fund is a real estate crowdfunding platform. Its identity rests on one picture, a small planet with buildings rising from every side, and its line says the rest: real estate crowdfunding made possible. The applications on the case page are presentation mock-ups.
AveNew Development, a property developer in Dubai, shows the website side: one decision, black type on white with one lime accent, carried through every page.
A real estate project with us starts with one conversation about the plot or the portfolio, the buyer, the launch date and what has to be ready for it. Read more about our real estate branding agency in Dubai.