ABOUT

The rental market in Dublin is experiencing a severe shortage of properties, coupled with a sharp increase in employment opportunities and investment. As prices are driven up, renters are fast losing the luxury of choice. SW3 Capital has entered the Irish market with a new build-to-rent scheme – a relatively new concept in the Irish market – to provide homes that are purpose-built for renting, constructed by top-quality developers and backed by long-term capital. We were appointed to name, position and develop this new brand that will lead the way in putting renters first, offering ease and security.

We helped articulate SW3 Capitals vision: to set the standard for a new generation of renting – smarter, benefit-focused and centred around the needs of our residents. The brand’s name needed to reflect this ambition and ‘Occu’ gave us everything we needed: a soft, confident sound that plays on the word ‘occupy’ while placing the emphasis on ‘you’.

Our proposition focuses on the ease of living with Occu. It’s the new way of renting: easy, seamless, honest, flexible, built around you, no fuss, no faff and next-level service. ‘All you have to do is move in’ became the central idea of our brand story with ‘Better renting. That’s different.’ as our key differentiator in a challenging market. The tone of voice is welcoming, warm (without being over-friendly) and focused on Occu’s many benefits. To bring these great benefits to life, we commissioned Andrew Rae to create a series of 8 hero illustrations that highlight the joy of finding a home that you love to live in.

To complement these, we developed a suite of icons and mini illustrations for use across all communications – such as location maps, floorplans, brochures, animations and welcome material for new residents. We also generated a bank of over 50 animated and still organic posts for use across all social channels.

The fully bespoke website is built around ease of use and understanding. It educates the user on the benefits of living with Occu, alongside an easy-to-use search system that will expand over time as Occu offers more apartments in more locations.

We developed and managed two social media campaigns to drive sign-ups to open days. The first, ‘Ready for residents’, secured phase 1 and 2 within 6 weeks. For the second social campaign, we developed a more targeted campaign, working with insight into the type of renters who had already filled apartments. We identified the most typical renter profiles and developed social campaigns to highlight the benefits that would most appeal to each: ‘Made for families’, ‘Pets can come too’ and ‘Work and work-out from home’. This ran throughout November and generated over 15,000 views on the website, with all remaining apartments looking to be fully reserved by January 2020.