This post is part of our ongoing series about brand differentiation for commercial real estate firms. Yesterday, we learned about using your office properties to enhance your firm’s brand identity.
Today, we’ll explore how you can design your office properties in a way that connects them with your brand story.
STEP THREE: Focus on property design
What do nap pods, rock walls, game rooms, ball pits, and wellness centers all have in common?
These are all amenities provided at the offices of the world’s top companies (Google, Adobe, Twitter, Zappos, and Apple, respectively). It’s clear that the days of cubicles and windowless buildings are long-gone in office design.
According to industry blog Curbed, “Office evolution and commercial curation” is one of the top 10 emerging trends that will shape real estate in 2018. There is more pressure than ever on office properties to provide an environment for company success. Companies are demanding “curated, configured office spaces that boost productivity.” Tailoring office properties to your target customers requires attention to detail in every aspect of a property’s design, but the rewards are well worth the effort.
To attract and retain tenants at your office properties, your commercial real estate firm will have to provide the best work environment in your area. While wellness centers and ball pits might not fit the culture of every company, good office design will.
Good design will appeal to and delight as many of our 5 senses as possible. Pleasant visual and auditory design are intuitive, simple parts of the design process, but many properties miss out on another sense that is easy to target: our sense of smell.
Mike Fransen, Chief Operating Officer of Parkway Property, was facing this exact problem. Mike told us,
“When we examined how we were engaging all 5 senses at our properties, smell was the one that was tough to pin down and deploy consistently.”
Parkway partnered with Prolitec ambient scenting services to add a vital design element to their premier office properties: an inspiring scent. Keeping in mind Parkway’s mission of creating office spaces that foster “productivity and profitability” for their tenants, Prolitec chose fragrances that have been proven to improve work performance and employee mood.
Mike Fransen reports that Parkway is very satisfied with this new design element, remarking,
“Prolitec has enabled us to effortlessly provide our customers with a great and consistent scent experience.”
At the end of the day, no amount of branding efforts will sell a property that is poorly designed. Prioritize appealing to all five of your customers’ senses in your properties’ design if you want to get ahead of your competition.
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out the other articles in this series: In Part 1, learn about cultivating personal relationships with clients. In Part 2, learn about how to make your office properties work for you by attracting the right tenants. Some commercial real estate branding trends never go out of style—like how important it is to find the right marketing team to represent your brand. Contact us to find out more about how to create a successful brand differentiation strategy for your commercial real estate firm.
