2023 Bronze B2C

Agency: addmustard

Client: Marsh and Parsons

Entry Title: Matching People and Property

Executive Summary

A depressed, post-Brexit, post-Covid housing market (London) and the fifth-least trusted profession—estate agents—spelt trouble.

Strategy

Search terms like “Should I buy a house now or wait” had risen 440% compared to 2021.

Landlords and tenants, sellers and buyers were looking for advice and reassurance, not just a ‘get it done’, transactional estate agency proposition. Marsh & Parsons repositioned as the people and customer-oriented business through a humorous, visual brand campaign.

To begin with, because each of its channels operated in silos, the brand campaign, while driving awareness, was not maximising its reach, engagement, or conversion ROI. The agency was briefed to create value in the business, through a unified, multi-channel marketing and technology brand campaign—to deliver a joined-up brand experience, driving sales growth while reducing the cost of enquiries and instructions.

Creativity

The team analysed qualitative research; market portal intelligence; search data and website analytics to join up the creative and communications. It created a multi-channel plan and forecast across OOH, social, web, CRM and search channels, setting targets for growth, conversion, efficiency, spend and ROI.

Creative executions were synchronised with branch locations and calendar events during 2022 and 2023 e.g. heat wave weather, Pride. Using geo-targeting, localised versions of the ads were served across social, the Google PMAX network and Google search platforms.

The customer journey was streamlined across channels, adding improved search features, speed and simplification changes to the website. Creating and producing search engine optimised content pages integrated with the brand campaign enabled prospective customers to navigate to highly personalised, relevant and reassuring content, but also provided the guidance and advice that users were directly looking for to build trust in the Marsh & Parsons brand.

Results

The Marsh & Parsons business was sold for £29m in February 2023. This represents a multiple of approximately 19 times its profits. Other estate agents in the sector and the parent company LSL plc trade at average multiples of approximately 6.5x profits. The additional £19m of value generated in the sale was attributed to the value of the brand, marketing campaign and technology.

The Team

Marsh and Parsons - Michael Baulk, Chairman - Patrick Littlemore, CEO - Justin Stanton, Marketing Director - Alex Lacey, Direct Marketing Manager

addmustard - Vicki Gore, Managing Director - Reece Starr, Creative Director -Harriet Kennedy, Senior Designer - Agathe Altwegg, Senior Designer - Teresa, Rodriguez Head of SEO - Felix Lopez, SEO Campaign Manager - Tim Waring, Head of Development - Joseph Patterson, Technical and SEO Director - David Charles, Developer - Marina Fraser, Data Analyst - Sam Brooker Head of Paid Media and Performance - Matilda Godson, Content Manager

Contributors

The Kite Factory and Stretton and Stretton