Compton launches brand studio

Real estate agency Compton has launched its own marketing arm, Compton Studio – an offering that co-founder Shaun Simons says will give landlords leasing new space “a much tighter, more informed, more focused approach to how brands are put together”. The new business is led by partner and Compton head of marketing Holly Allenby, who joined the firm last summer from the same role at residential estate agency The Modern House. Allenby will lead a team of designers, website builders and other creatives to help landlords devise brands for their office space and produce videos, websites and other marketing products targeted directly at potential tenants. [caption id="attachment_1240478" align="alignright" width="200"] Holly Allenby[/caption] “Since joining and understanding the commercial real estate world, I think it’s interesting how agents speak to agents,” Allenby told EG ahead of the launch. “I’ve come from a fashion/lifestyle background where you very much target the consumer. Here [in the commercial real estate market] no one is doing that. No one is talking about how people occupy spaces and targeting businesses directly. It’s an insular community of who you know. What we are doing is working on content that goes direct to the consumer.” Allenby said Compton Studio will centre on building brands in recognition of “the power of brand and sense of belonging that it cultivates”. That chimes with a belief that Simons says he has shared with Compton co-founders Michael Raibin and Elliott Stern since they set up shop in April 2021 – and indeed stretches back to their time running Hatton Real Estate, which was launched in 2010 and sold to Colliers in 2016. “We have a belief that the agency world is changing,” Simons told EG. “We had this belief at Hatton and I would say we influenced improvements in the sector by using social media as our main form of marketing, by using more photography. We were the first agents to use Twitter; we were the guys doing video before anyone else did. So we had our imprint on that vision. But the idea of Compton was to upgrade that and go further.” At the crux of this is pushing the commercial property industry to talk to consumers and end users. Most office leasing deals handled by the Compton team are sub-10,000 sq ft, Simons said, and last year more than 60% of those had no agent representation. “The number of deals we do each year with agents is getting smaller,” he added. “It’s not because agents are rubbish, it’s because the industry is changing.” Agents need to recognise that shift as much as landlords, Simons said. “If you’re a landlord and you want to dispose of space, and your agents are failing to prioritise not just marketing to agents but, in the same capacity and with the same commitment, approaching consumers, you are doing your clients a disservice.” The value of reaching a would-be tenant Googling “offices in Farringdon” is one of the three “fundamental beliefs” that Simons says lie behind the decision to launch Compton Studio – a business he added that has been in the making since before he, Raibin and Stern had even come up with the name “Compton”. The other two beliefs are the need to offer speed to market by taking out a marketing middleman, and the knowledge and experience of the broader Compton crew working on office leasing and investment deals. The studio launch gives Compton its fifth business line as it marks its third anniversary, the others handling disposals, tenant rep, capital markets and serviced office brokerage. Simons is known for ruffling feathers – not least with his social media posts about the ills of remote working – and he appreciates that not all parts of the real estate industry will be ready to hear the message of Compton Studio. But with this week’s launch and other bolt-on service lines in the offing, he hopes that peers and rivals will soon see things his way. “People who don‘t consider design and brand important when it comes to leasing or selling office space are incorrect,” he said. “If you’re going to fight against the modernisation of the industry, you’re going to die. You either embrace it or you die.” Image and video © Compton