Home Case
Anna Medfors, Heidi Vad Andersen, Hanka Luberadzka, Jakub Zarzycki, Elisabeth Verleih, Duojiao Dong & Camilla Norlyk Feierskov Teko VIAUC 12/11/2013
Contents About Home: ..................................................................................................................................................................3 Home mission: ...........................................................................................................................................................3 Home values: .............................................................................................................................................................3 The housing market in Denmark: ...................................................................................................................................3 Brand Image: ..................................................................................................................................................................5 Statistics on immigration and housing: ..........................................................................................................................7 Phase 0 - Focus: .............................................................................................................................................................9 SWOT: ........................................................................................................................................................................9 Strengths and Weaknesses: ..................................................................................................................................9 Opportunities and Threats: .................................................................................................................................10 Competitors: ............................................................................................................................................................10 Competitor’s Analysis – Summary: .....................................................................................................................11 Analysis Home’s current advertisement situation: .............................................................................................12 Phase 1 - Research: ......................................................................................................................................................13 Questionnaire:.........................................................................................................................................................13 Phase 2 – Analysis: .......................................................................................................................................................13 Questionnaire analysis: ...........................................................................................................................................13 Pattern Analysis: ......................................................................................................................................................14 Phase 3 – Idea and Concept.........................................................................................................................................14 Brainstorm ...............................................................................................................................................................14 Target group - Foreign audience relevant for Home ...............................................................................................14 Solution ...................................................................................................................................................................15 1. Emotional level - the campaign.......................................................................................................................15 2. Functional level - redesign ..............................................................................................................................15 3. Brand level - explanatory video ......................................................................................................................16 Phase 5 - Prototype .....................................................................................................................................................16 Appendixes : ................................................................................................................................................................18 Appendix 1: .............................................................................................................................................................18 Appendix 2: Selected and translated responses from the survey .............................................................................1
About Home: Home is a Danish real-estate agency that was founded on the 1st of August in 1989. The company deals with selling and buying of especially private property such as apartments and housing. The chain and brand as a whole was launched publically on the 1st of January 1990 and currently has 159 Home-stores throughout Denmark with over 800 employees. The chain is mainly a franchise with 80% of the stores run as separate franchises and the other 20% run by the actual company. Some franchisees run a single store while some franchisees run as much 10-15. Home is a daughter company of Realkredit Danmark that owns 100% of the brand. Realkredit Danmark is solely owned by the bank Danske Bank.
The brand is highly focused on providing their customers with a sense of safety when it comes to purchasing and selling real estate and as such this is stated as the vision of Home.
Home mission: -
The client’s needs and expectations are first priority Home takes responsibility over both the client and society as a whole Home is innovative to provide greater value to the client Home has the most competent employees It is easy to contact home to start a dialogue
Home values: -
Competence Accessibility Involvement Possibility to provide value to any transaction
The housing market in Denmark: Denmark was one of the countries in Scandinavia that was hit hardest by the global financial crises of 2008. From the highest prices in 2006-2007 home prices fell by about 30% and still have not recovered fully1. The Danish press often says now the process is up again or now the market has turned. We all follow the housing market because it is very important for our families’ economy and for the whole social attitude towards the housing market. If the press tells the public that it is expensive to go buy houses the consumers will not
1
Article: House hunting in Denmark, the new York times, 2012
go buy houses, but if it’s cheap more people will buy houses so what we hear in the media effects how we look at the housing market. To understand the housing market in Denmark it is important to get a good look at how the housing market as a whole work. The government´s housing policy is to form a basis for residential market development and pricing. The government has a lot of different tools to affect the housing market directly and indirectly; directly through things like housing benefit and housing subsidy, indirectly through taxes and other subsidies. The overall aim of housing policy is to ensure that the entire Danish population has shelter thought diversity of supply of housing types.
There are 4 types of residential property. The first one is freehold property which means that the owner has complete ownership of the land and all the buildings that stand on the land. This type of housing type is the most popular one in Denmark. The biggest part of freehold properties represented by detached housing witch takes over 70% of the total 2 . In addition to the detached housing are owner-occupied dwellings typical farmhouses at agricultural properties, apartment buildings, townhouses and inhabited summer cottages. The second type of housing is rental homes. Rental home is in most cases an apartment in a block of flats. Other options could be townhouses and duplexes. Landlords can be both private individuals, businesses and various organizations. The lessors have a right of disposal of the property. This means that the landlord can decide who can stay in the home and the main changes that should be made. The third option is cooperative which originated from the early 1900s where housing conditions in Copenhagen was miserable. The definition of the public and private cooperative housing is a housing community where members pay a modest enrolment fee and a deposit. The last type of housing is public housing. It is a social housing, which includes youth and senior housing, group homes and family homes. Average m2 prices (DKK) of owner occupied homes, Denmark 2
Statistikbanken
The average price of housing in Denmark is 15.000 DKK per square meter however, prices range greatly depending on area. Throughout the past decades, many homes has been built in Denmark. Owner-occupied housing has all the years been very dominate, especially form 1960-1980. In this period of time construction of cooperative housing was at a standstill witch normally have a stable 10-13 % of the total number of dwellings3. Housing (2008)4
In Denmark, the most popular form of housing is the owner-occupied homes. About 40% of housing is rental homes, here is 521.000 is public housing and 460.000 are rental homes. In this figure under others are homes that are unused or unknown.
Brand Image: When dealing with something like realty, it is important to note, that the consumers image will differ a lot more than when talking about something as simple as e.g. electronics. Home is seen as the intermediary 3 4
Realkredittraadet.dk Realkreditraadet.dk
between the buyer and the seller. A house is a very personal thing and therefore it is important to the customers that the company is trustworthy. Home is one of the brands that are top–of–mind when thinking about realtors. (See survey appendix) This can be because of something as simple as their name. When people are looking to buy and/or sell a house, it is not just bricks, it is a home. The name adds value to the brand image and so does their adverts. Home has intensive marketing campaigns and is one of the most new-thinking realtors in the market. Trust pilot is a site that gives the consumers the possibility of reviewing different companies that they have used. Trustpilot.dk, can only be used as an indicator of what customers think about the brand and their services and does not always reflect the truth. The scores goes from 0 to 10 and this table shows what Home and its main competitors scored. Home 8,7
EDC 4,5
Nybolig 5,2
Danbolig 8,2
The result on Trustpilot.dk shows that Home is the realtor that has the most positive effect on their customers. They are also the ones with the most reviews, which means that even though their customers mainly have had something positive to say, they have still made the effort of giving a review. Consumers on Trustpilot.dk5, state that Home are - Reliable and trustworthy - Easy to navigate - Fast, effective and reliable - Worth recommending to others - Capable realtors that knows their field - Easy for a first-time-buyer - Good and effective sales process The statements above are repeated many times in the 148 reviews that Trustpilot.dk holds. This shows, that Home.dk manages to live up to their own mission and vision. The consumers have a good image of their brands and the customers does feel that they are in competent hands and that selling or buying a house is not a stress factor. Maybe Home has a clear model that all the Home realtors has to follow, because the results are more or less the same no matter where in Denmark the reviewers are located and this, again, shows that they live up to their own mission of being a competent and trustworthy real estate agency.
5
http://www.trustpilot.dk/review/www.home.dk
Statistics on immigration and housing: Developing a strategy to target consumers that are immigrating to Denmark, it is inevitable to have a closer look at the statistical data in order to determine the main target group(s) here. According to The Danish Immigration Service, in 2011 and 2012 the majority of people emigrated from Poland, with an average of 5000 emigrants each year, followed by Romania with more than 4000 emigrants receiving Danish residence permits (Fig. 1). However, from the USA an average of 3500 and from Germany more than 3000 people took up residency in Denmark both years (Fig. 1).
Figure 1 Nevertheless, when taking the past 10 years into consideration it becomes clear that the majority of immigrants is of European origin, mainly German and Polish and more recently Romanian, followed by Asians, mainly of Chinese and Indian decency, and a more recently increasing number of North Americans (Fig. 2). Combining the numbers from 2003 to 2012 (Fig. 2) the biggest immigrant nations in Denmark, and therefore the nationalities with the greatest target potential, emerge.
Figure 2 Between 2003 and 2012, 38.018 Polish people immigrated to Denmark, making the nation the biggest group among expats, followed by Germany with 28.156 emigrants and 21.370 immigrants from the USA (Fig. 2). However, from Romania a total of 15.124 people immigrated, close to China's 14.485 and from India only 12.118 immigrated to Denmark in that period of time (Fig. 2). Therefore, the three biggest groups of immigrants living in Denmark and thus, the three most relevant nationalities are Polish, German and US American. Having a more sociological look at these groups, it becomes apparent that, according to the most recent numbers, the majority, namely 43%, of immigrated wage earners or self-employed are researchers and lecturers (Fig. 3). Therefore, these also make the most relevant customer group among immigrants for HOME.
Figure 36
6
Source Figure 1 – 3: Statistical Overview Migration and Asylum 2012, Published by The Danish Immigration Service (2013); accessible from: http://www.nyidanmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/F7FC2906-3320-4B9B-B5373CF5E26DBA33/0/extract_statistical_overview_migration_asylum_2012.pdf
Phase 0 - Focus: In Phase 0 the focus has been to understand Home as a company as well as the real-estate market as a whole. This reveals what the gap in the industry is and what information is lacking.
SWOT: The SWOT-analysis will highlight the core strengths of Home as a brand which will act as a starting point to base further decisions on. The SWOT has been created with specific focus on foreigners or those who are new to Denmark. Strengths(Internal) Home cooperates with strong economical partners Focus on innovation and growth High customer focus Network platform for High-Performance Top-of-mind awareness (TOMA)
Weaknesses(Internal) Differentiation between the different players in the market is still low Do not provide the better customer service than their competitors Do not offer information in languages other than Danish
Opportunities(External) Market segment is poised for rapid growth New markets offer growth potential Housing prices have begun to rise again Focus on new segment (Foreigners) may increase income
Threats(External) Financial crisis could reduce demand within the housing market Market may become price sensitive Other competitors entered targeted market segment Banks provide loans more strictly
Strengths and Weaknesses: Home is in co-operation with one of the strongest financial players in the market, they can offer a good and safe experience to the customer. One of the things Home focuses on the most is to constantly develop their concept to make Home as innovative as possible within the real-estate market. The website is constantly updated to provide the customers with the newest technology and they are also starting to branch out to smart-devices and social media which makes them more approachable. One of the things Home focuses on the most is to put the customer and their values first. They do this by attempting to offer the highest quality customer service possible and train their employees to deal with all sorts of situations and requests. In 2010 Home was on top of the “Top-of-mind”-awareness scale within the real-estate market. This means that a specific product, company or brand pops into the mind of the customer when thinking of a particular industry. The reason as to why Home is on top of the scale most likely has something to do with the fact that they are the current market leader within the real-estate industry and as such is preferred by many customers.
Some of the weaknesses of Home include the issue of differentiation in-between the different real-estate agencies within Denmark. They all provide the same services and offer the same level of customer service to the consumer and as such not much sets them apart. There is no company that stands out amongst the others. Home only provides information in Danish and as such misses out on an entire segment of customers (Foreigners).
Opportunities and Threats: Since Home does not provide information in English (Or other languages) it would be a huge opportunity for them to do so in order to obtain a market segment that none of their competitors has any focus on. While this may not be a particularly huge segment, it is a segment that could be beneficial for Home to obtain (And the price to do so wouldn’t be overly expensive). Since Home is a market leader within the real-estate industry it is clear that they are in a good position to change their market position while still maintaining the dynamics of the company as a whole. With the economy being unpredictable, a new financial crisis would severely hurt all real-estate agencies and would most likely also make the banks more restrictive with approving loans for real-estate purposes.
Competitors: 1. EDC 2. DANBOLIG 3. NYBOLIG Competitor’s analysis: When it comes to targeting the Home Real Estate service towards young audience, the most natural channels are internet and mobile platform. The online platform as a focal channel is a good choice also when it comes to slightly older users - the foreigners, who no longer are enrolled in Universities or schools. This is not only because the internet is usually the easiest-to-access and a very comprehensive
source of information, but it may also help to overcome/avoid the situation when personal “human contact” in foreign, unknown language would become awkward for the customer. Therefore, as the key goal featured in the brief is to “Create a concept to strengthen relations (trust) and communication between customers (foreign students/new to Denmark) and home through User driven innovation.” it seems crucial to consider accessibility, usability and customer interaction in the first place. Online real estate – Analysis: Within Danish market there are a few major internet platforms offering Online Real Estate services. Services in this category differ slightly from one provider to another, but in general the websites through which the service is being interfaced are built around a filter-search concept. The following section features a visual juxtaposition of Home’s and its competitor’s online platforms, se appendix
Competitor’s Analysis – Summary: There are many real estate agents in the market. Some of them have a very broad, nationwide coverage and some act more locally. Unlike one could assume, the major service providers doesn’t always offer the best service. In spite the fact that the companies may operate huge budgets, these major brands are not always to come up with the best solutions. For instance, EDC - one of the greatest enterprises in the real estate category - would feature rather miserable photography on their platform and often use inaccurate floor plans. NYBOLIG on the other hand has failed when it comes to their search function, which corroded by mistakes can become a certain struggle to the user. Neither Home nor any of its competitors offer a translated (English as a minimum) version of their service, which is the biggest issue when it comes to establishing a sustainable relationship with foreign users. EDC -Search option - on the front landing page, where you can choose between area, municipality, choose what kind of housing etc. - Annoying issue with the search by a postal code - Rather clear "results overview" section - including details such as the number of m2, floors, year, price pr. m2, gross/net and price - Sorting by price - and other factors NYBOLIG - Search Tool - unclear, difficult to navigate - Facilities nearby - one can look for example for a place close to grocery shopping center - Rather clear overview on the offers - pictures plus a small description on the bottom - Not a very great quality of pictures - House Tour feature - 360 degree photos DANBOLIG - The most expanded search tool - One can search down to the tiniest detail. - Mark-an-area feature - ex. one may need to work in a city, and thanks to this feature "draw" circles over an area around the city - Search by different facilities in the close area - ex. whether the customer would like to stay close to forest, shopping center or a gym (filters/choices display on immediately on the right side of the screen) - Good property overview (very similar to Home's - 4 pop up pictures)
- Search and save results - Sales presentation - relevant info, cold facts: a good description, quick overview - Professional pictures HOME - Landing page - features quick search in large size. - Search tool - search by case number, type of property, value and location - Street address - confusing search criteria - The map function is clear and helpful - Icons/pictograms - may be confusing and difficult to navigate for new users - Nice picture function - when a user holds the mouse over an image - 4 pictures pop up, so one can quickly see an overview of the house interior - Inviting sales presentation - good, comprehensive info, tempting description - Real estate offer details - A table with pictures, value, denominations for the year of building, size, floors, rooms, closest shopping facilities and schools
Analysis Home’s current advertisement situation: An advertising situation analysis provides an overview of Home's image with in the marketplace. This piece of research provides executives with an accurate picture of consumer' perception of both Home and its competitors. By assessing Home's strengths and weaknesses, advertisers can focus on issues and messages that will resonate strongly with Home clients' target audience. Home is in a good position to change their market position and maintain dynamics. Newspaper advertising face difficulties but is still dominant. But differentiation between the different players in the market is not obvious. Nybolig and EDC are increasing the investment on TV spending. All the players try to use online media to extend and improve the market share. Advertising Message It sheds light on "what" to communicate to your target audience. Leave it to the creative professionals to figure out "how" that should be done. Through the analysis of specific advertising case, to understand the concept of main four players. Home’s message ”Your preferred real estate agent”; Home always keep the professional image to the audience. Because they want to be the real estate agent in the audiences mind. But sometime the audience would like more warm feeling from the advertising. Home’s advertisement was a little serious. Danbolig’s message ”Knowledge of the housing market” ; Danbolig was already regard the audiences who speak English. They transfer the message to the customers: we know the market! The advertising could give the audiences relaxation and comfortable feeling. Nybolig message ”A good deal”; Nybolig used snails as its endorsements, they transmit their message through animated story to the audiences. Advertising is lively and interesting. But slightly naive style, it is not enough to touch consumers.
EDC message ”Move on in a good way”; EDC ‘s advertising style focused on the details of life, the story gives customer a warm feeling. It is easier to touch the audience. Advertising design is close to real life, reflecting the needs of the consumers. Home’s challenge: Build a Powerful Social Media Strategy as a real estate agent using social media to market and grow their business can seem daunting. However, in today’s online driven world, developing a working strategy to build the social media presence is imperative. Real Estate Agents are ideally placed to use social media to establish their brand and marketplace. Through a clear understanding of their market position, social media properties like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn are simply platforms for building relationships that are intimate and yet ‘efficient’ in that they can connect with so many people at once. Even though all the players built their group through social media platform. But they didn’t gain good performance yet. Home should focus on this trend to win much more attention. This is also good way to build good communication with new foreigner or new immigrants who live in Denmark. Home can build an English language group to improve that niche market.
Phase 1 - Research: The research conducted reveals a gap within the property-industry when it comes to foreigners purchasing and selling homes within Denmark. There is very little information targeted towards foreigners to aid them further and as such it may be a way for Home to enter a new market by providing this information and filling the gap.
Questionnaire: Questionnaire was conducted on one of the biggest minorities in Denmark. Polish real-estate owners in Denmark helped us to gather information relevant to the project through a short survey about their experience. Survey’s general purpose was to gather information about how complicated the process was for people from abroad and how did they felt about entirety of the process they went through. The survey was conducted in polish language and was followed up by short interview with the few participants. Selected survey answers can be found in the appendices.
Phase 2 – Analysis: Questionnaire analysis: Overall survey and interviews results showed that most of the people considered buying the real estate after at least 2-3 years in the country and with certain level of fluency in the Danish language. Most of the people started to look for the real estate first on the internet and most of them contacted an agency they have found on the internet. Around half of respondents consulted more than one agency. Small local agencies were often chosen due to location of the property or inability to get a loan from a bigger bank. Most of the participants did not find any major obstacles along the way and did find agencies helpful along the process.
Survey participants who did not speak Danish declared a slightly lower score on how complicated was the overall process but they as well found agencies prepared for servicing the international client at the agency. Vast majority of respondents started looking for the real estate on the internet with just few people who started through word of mouth. All of them visited the agency in person for further information or help. Respondents who did not contact any agency declared a lower property satisfaction levels and declared the language barrier as a main obstacle, people who did not speak Danish still found agencies helpful but not online.
Pattern Analysis: Looking at both the Home website and the competitor’s websites (EDC, Danbolig etc.) it stands clear that there is no way for foreigners to easily obtain information via the internet. Neither website have a standardized “translate” button that google provide to translate websites automatically. This pattern seems to be ongoing throughout the entire real-estate industry, meaning that an entire segment of customers is ignored.
Phase 3 – Idea and Concept Brainstorm Based on all of the information gathered by the research a brainstorm chart has been created with what is considered as the core values of Home and what the customer wants. The main focus of the consumers is mainly family housing, a place that can fit everyone and provide a safe environment for children and loved ones.
Target group - Foreign audience relevant for Home In order to come up with a communication strategy fitted to the specific target group, there was a need to define who exactly is Home's potential client from a group as broad as “foreigners to Denmark”? Taking the past 10 years into consideration it became clear that the biggest percentage of immigrants is of European origin, mainly German and Polish and more recently Romanian, followed by Asians, mainly of Chinese and Indian decency, and increasing number of North Americans. According to the research the three biggest groups of immigrants living in Denmark and thus, the three most relevant nationalities are Polish, German and US American. Moreover, approached from a more sociological standpoint, it became apparent that the majority, namely 43%, of immigrated wage earners or self-employed are researchers and lecturers. People hired in these work positions are more likely to stay in Denmark for longer periods of time, when compared, for example to the seasonal workers (second big percentage) employed across the agriculture sector. Therefore, these also make the most relevant customer group among immigrants for HOME. This finding has major influence on the Home's new communication style as this labor group can be characterized by above-average incomes, wide professional knowledge, most likely high personal culture and taste (well-mannered), as well as high intercultural competences. The high level of education within this target group may imply that these potential clients are more conscious and thus more demanding as customer (when it comes to the product/service using and buying behavior.)
Solution As derived from the analysis of the current Home and its competitors' advertising strategies, there is not enough differentiation when it comes to the communication style and tone of the danish real estate agencies. In general, the style in which these agencies advertise to danish customers is mostly pragmatic, straight-forward and down-to-earth. However, what seems to work perfectly within danish culture, when advertising to native inhabitants of the country, may or may not apply equally well to the newcomers. This will be influenced for instance by whether the cultural background of certain foreigners' groups is similar or differs greatly from the danish one. Therefore, HOME should begin from "translating" their brand communication onto the new ground, in order for it to become relevant to the foreigners' cultural perception. Some of the newcomers may be used to more emotional approach within advertising. The "home" term itself may mean a very different thing when it comes to various cultural circles. To spot and address the need of the customer, no matter whether this occurs on a simply functional or emotional level, is a key goal to every successful brand strategy. As HOME is to target people from various cultural backgrounds, the most relevant in this case is to find the common problems that each of these potential customers is struggling with.
1. Emotional level - the campaign When considering emotional level, common issue to every expat coming to settle down in a new environment, is that he is likely to be going through all the different phases of the so-called “expat curve”. This means that he/she would basically experience different emotional states - beginning from the culture shock, via increased enthusiasm, even up to breakdowns - all of them connected to one’s feeling lost surrounded by a different, alien culture. One of the best cures in order to start feeling more "settled" is to buy or rent a place to stay for a long period of time, and then create a personal, unique interior and ambiance - make it your new home. Home stands for more than just a "place to stay". The campaign is created around the idea of that no matter where geographically one decides to lead their life, they would always carry their culture, memories, experiences and passions along them. The visual communication (advertising) campaign features pictures of various satisfied Home clients. The pictures show the people of different age, nationality and profession (highly skilled such as the researchers, lecturers, creative industry employees etc.). Each of the advertisements features the name, profession and the original city where the person is from, followed by the type of housing they acquired thanks to HOME service in DK (For example: Tracy,Researcher, Singapore - Studio Apartment Vejle.). The models are being photographed in their own apartments, and their looks as well as the interior design of these venues is implying that these people have managed to not only get the perfect place to stay, but thanks to HOME, they have been capable of feeling themselves at home.
2. Functional level - redesign A) Translation The idea is to simplify the information stream towards the consumer and as such allow the process to be less daunting. The first and most important of the ideas that has been discussed is to translate the website to English (with a possibility to expand the translation to German and Polish languages) to allow foreigners to gather information and look at houses via the internet. B) Redesign of the website
Redesign of the brand’s website is crucial when it comes to providing clear and coherent communication to the foreign audience. The redefined design shall become a platform for building a sustainable relationship between the brand and the clients of Home service. In order to achieve the sufficient level of clarity and user’s intuitive understanding of all the components featured across Home’s online channels, the solution proposed below shall be implemented on a 360°basis, which means this should include changes at many levels, representing a certain consistency and forming a coherent both visual and functional system. Firstly, to provide the intuitive, user-friendly interaction, system of icons will be introduced, each of them pictograms standing for a different product/service/warranty feature from across Home’s portfolio. As the brand operates at least 7 of such products/services at a time (trademarked - ex.MyHome), the number of various options might have been confusing,hard to navigate within, and thus most likely overwhelming for the users (especially unique/new/light users of the home.dk platform). The new system of icons will, upon the implementation, be featured on the website as well as it will appear in the explanatory video in order to ascertain solid introduction for the customer to better orientate within the brand visual communication. Further action that Home could be undertaking upon introducing the redesigned version of the website is to create a series of infographics, with information that simplifies the process of buying a house and highlights the information that is important to consider. This information would entail Deeds, lawyers, permission from the Ministry of Justice, property pricing, property tax, financing etc. All of this information is already available but it is difficult to understand, as it’s not all gathered in one place. C) MyHome - mobile App Introducing the digital app based on the features of MyHome service - the tool serving as a personal site stores and tracks the current status of the announcements the user was checking etc. The application should help the customer to get all the necessary updates to the HOME services.
3. Brand level - explanatory video The explanatory video that is aimed for appearing as the intro to Home.dk landing page for every english language search queries, or loaded immediately after the user changes the language to english (EN). The video explains the HOME brand concept, provides instructions on how to subscribe to and use the service, as well as introduced the coherent system of icons with information on different products and services offered by HOME. Above that the video may be used for online video advertising (for example on YouTube).
Phase 5 - Prototype The aim of this campaign is to make Home relevant and approachable for expats newly arriving in Denmark. To achieve that, it is of great importance to make all Home services presented on their website comprehensible and therefore accessible for international clients. Thus, all products/services offered by home has been translated into English. In addition to that as part of the planned redesigning of the website, icons has been developed depicting the particular product/service to make these easier to comprehend/increase readability, to ensure recognizability continually and to draw attention. Naturally, the icons have been designed in Home's color scheme and, as shown in the promotional
imagery(Prototypes) in the appendices, are to be presented either in red on white or in white on a red background. For print as well as outdoor advertisements, a coherent campaign has been developed as presented in the Appendices. Essentially, each picture depicts the company name 'home' and their web address in white on a red background. Above that, you can see happy looking expat/expats in their new home in Denmark and shortly stated their name, occupation, place of origin, current type of housing and location. The picture is combined with this short information to create a feeling of acquaintance and sympathy with the person(s) depicted and therefore sympathy and trust with the brand Home. As previously mentioned in reference to the expat curve and based on personal experience, the emotional appeal is very important here, as people newly arriving in a foreign country might easily feel lost and overwhelmed , also not knowing which real estate company to trust as they are not solely looking for a place to stay, but a place to make their new home. The imagery of cheerful expats in combination with the Home brand name evokes the feeling that Home can bring that same happiness and satisfaction to the beholder. These ads are meant to be equally used in print media such a magazines or news papers as full-pager or integrated on a page and outdoor on billboards and buses, where they can be easily spotted around towns in Denmark. Please see the appendix for prototypes and here is a link for the video http://www.wideo.co/view/1261811386110414673-homeexplanatoryvideo.
Appendixes : Appendix 1: Main / Landing Page
Advanced Search Window
Filtered Search Results
Offer Details
WWW.NYBOLIG.DK Main/Landing Page
Advanced Search Window
Filtered Search Results
Offer Details
WWW.HOME.DK Main/Landing Page
Advanced Search Window
Filtered Search Results
Offer Details
WWW.DANBOLIG.DK Main / Landing Page
Advanced Search Window
Filtered Search Results
Offer Details
Appendix 2: Selected and translated responses from the survey 1.) How long have you been in Denmark ?
2.) Do you speak Danish ?
3.) For how long do you live in purchase d property?
4.) Which one did you acquired?
1-2 years
No
5 years
Yes
1-6 months
House/Buildin g
28 years
yes
8 years
8 years
no
5 years
7 years
5.) Were there any requirement s or problems due to being an immigrant?
language barrier Lack of information online in English when I first moved to Denmark.
6.) How would you grade your experience ? Was it difficult or easy to buy?
7.) Where did you start looking for offers?
8.) Do you know any real estate agencies in Denmark ? Can you mention any?
Internet
9.) Did you try using any of them ?
Real estate agencie s
Danbolig, Home, Nybolig, EDC, Tinggaard
Yes
House
5
Internet
yes
7-12 months
House
3
Internet
yes
1-2 years
House
4
Internet
Home, danbolig, edc, nybolig, real estate, DBA.DK, robinhus.. Danbolig, home, place2live Local: BoyeBolig, OeBolig, national: nybolig
yes
3 years
House
5
Internet
"Anja Hensberg " local in Nykøbing Mors edc , nybolig
yes
(Scale is 1-5 where 1 is the worst and 5 the best)
11.) Did you acquire your propert y through the agency ?
12.) Do you remembe r from where you knew about the agency?
13.) Did the real estate was prepared to provide service to a not Danish person?
14.) How helpful was the real estate agency ?
No
4
no
10.) Did you have experienc e with more than one agency?
yes
15.) How satisfied are you with your property ?
3 Yes, Danbolig, Nybolig, Home and EDC,
Yes, from Danboli g.
From Internet
Yes however i had to ask for it, it was not readily available on the internet translated into English.
From Internet
yes
yes
Anja Hensberg, edc
4
5
5
5
yes, home
From Internet
Yes
4
4
not existing anymore agency BoyeBolig
From friends
4
4
yes
From Internet
Communicatio n without a problem in English and Danish, patient explanation of matters No problems at all, felt that there was no difference in service for Danes and international people. equal treatment
5
4