The business of building brands in today’s economy has changed the way we think and support brands. Gone are the days of thinking that brand is ‘king’ and that a great identity or an ad campaign is all that matters.

People working in the world of brands today need to be more than just creative; they need to be astute business people who create and manage tools in order to drive business growth.

And this is the key: a brand is a business tool. It is a tool that attracts customers to the right products and services that a company offers. It is used to connect and ultimately keep the customer. It has to work really hard all the time, keeping up with market changes, customer and business needs and all while effectively delivering to the bottom line. A failing brand is a lazy brand that thinks it can ride the glory of the past, or settle for mediocrity as being good enough.

The big question is: do your strategic and creative products stack up as a business tool in order to drive growth in tough economic times?

The economic downturn in South Africa resulted in a lot of talented senior people leaving the security of big agencies to follow their passion; that of making a difference to business through their God given talent, be it design or communication. As a result we are seeing some really good interesting working coming out of smaller shops, work that extends beyond just creative ideas, but work that stretches the boundaries and delivers business growth.

Having come through the mill of large brand and communication agencies, I realized that the ‘cookie cutting, one size fits all’ approach to creativity is a fading star. The industry requires creativity supported by good solid thinking that makes business sense. , I always tell people to trust their gut; you always know when something is right or wrong; you know if you like or dislike things, and above all you know if it will make money for the business or not.

For the last three years, we have worked on some interesting projects that have stretched the team to think wide and deliver some unique solutions for driving business growth.

One of these projects is Menlyn Maine, a city development in Pretoria. The client approached us with this challenge: “How do we get our first big tenant now that the market has turned?” The development comprises of 140 000m2 commercial office space, 35 000m2 retail space and 85 000m2 up market residential space. The client team was exploring how they could make this development sustainable in order to drive premium rentals. After extensive investigation into the product, market and sustainable property development, we decided the way to position the brand and leverage the economic value was through building the First Green City in Africa. The challenge with this is that sustainable buildings come at a premium of around 6% and in the middle of a recession, attracting tenants was now even harder. Understanding this, we were convinced that it was the only way to drive market differentiation, economic viability and product longevity.

The other challenge with sustainability is that it was evident that there was a great deal of ‘green-washing’ going on in the property market and credibility was often being questioned. To overcome this, the Menlyn Maine brand needed to align with credible partners. Business relationships were formed with the Green Building Council of South African and the Clinton Foundation’s Climate+ global program. Aligning with these organizations meant the business had to change certain operational plans and use suitable tools developed by these organizations to guide the building of not only the structures, but the surrounding cityscape as well. With the development modified, Menlyn Maine could now truly claim to be the First Green City in Africa. With the brand positioned and the product firmly defined, all that was standing between success and Menlyn Maine was the tenants.

“I remember asking the guys from the Clinton Foundation why we could not use their name in our marketing collateral to attract customers? Their response was – “we only talk about what we have done as opposed to what we intend doing”. This was one of the most profound statements I had ever heard and went against everything a marketer believes, especially in the property development market. After some discussion we came to an agreement and were given the go ahead to use their brand in relation to key sustainable actions that Menlyn Maine had already taken.

This certainly changed the approach that Menlyn Maine needed to take with their communication. Long gone is the mode of thinking “this is who we are, aren’t we wonderful, buy us”. We had to come up with a different way to talk to the market in order to get those tenants. We also realized that when communicating to potential tenants their knowledge of sustainability and how it can deliver to their business’s bottom line was not only extremely limited but also naïve.

In our quest for the ever-elusive tenants, the communication needed to take on a unique form. We developed a communication plan that had three core thrusts. The first spoke to educating tenants on how being in a green building and precinct can aid their business financially, directly on the bottom line, while giving them strategic marketing leverage with their customers. The second thrust was about driving green credibility through highlighting green actions already taken in the first phase of the development and participating as a member of the green global community. The campaign’s third phase spoke emotively about the concept of “movement” and the need to change, to not be left behind and to be inspired by the opportunity that lies ahead.

With the communications campaign launched and actively managed, the first big tenant came knocking, and who better than Nedbank, the green bank of South Africa. Their reason for choosing Menlyn Maine for their regional headquarters was that out of all the property options, Menlyn Maine was the only development that truly understood what it takes to deliver a sustainable building and city. Aha - the moment of truth! Soon after this, the next big tenant - Softline VIP - signed up and the future potential tenant list started to grow.

We can now say Menlyn Maine has already successfully used its brand – of being Africa’s first green city -as a very effective tool to drive product development and the business agenda.