Background
Homes.com.au aimed to create a fairer, more cost-effective solution for the online property advertising market. Homes.com.au is built on superior technology, artificial intelligence, unique search functionality, and innovative features that make it quicker and easier to connect people to homes. Homes.com.au is an intuitive, vibrant, inspiring new platform that enables all Australians to find their perfect next property, whatever and wherever that is.
Approach
The aim was to create true differentiation that enables Homes.com.au to find a positioning that they could own, a personality and tone of voice that would be distinct and appealing to our defined audiences, creating a more personalised approach to finding and buying or selling a property. With a focus on ‘stop searching, start finding’ the platform offers a smart new way to do real estate for all Australians. The development of the brand and its personality, through its brand character (Homer) enables us to be helpful, curious, committed, and professional whilst being designed to be simple, friendly, and intelligent.
The brand needed to be able to engage with different audiences – from general awareness at launch, flexible enough to work within different locations, cities or suburbs. It needed to be able to work in partnership with agents, able to attract them to the platform and communicate specific platform innovation and features to all audiences. Homer was developed to take questions directly in the first person, acting as a virtual real estate assistant – as voice-based search becomes the go-to function of platforms. Delivering a more personalised real estate search for all.
Solution
Building a challenger brand in the face of corporate giants within the real estate market posed a significant challenge. Developing a brand with personality, a consumer-first approach, one that could match up to machine learning, intelligent functionality, and an innovative mentality allowed us to create a brand that could adapt and communicate on many levels across all channels.
Launched at the start of August 2021, Homes.com.au has gained momentum quickly with early signs of its effectiveness, differentiation and recognisability in the marketplace, elevating awareness and user engagement above targets.