It's the End of the 'Sign and Forget' Era
For a very long time, the property industry didn’t need to pay attention to brand.
For decades, it went a little like this:
A landlord owned a building, found a tenant, got them to sign a lease often for ten, fifteen, twenty years. Job done.
The relationship between landlord and tenant was transactional.
You didn’t need:
→ a brand strategy when your tenants were legally committed to you for the better part of a decade
→ to think about experience, community, or belonging.
You needed a building, a legal document, and a managing agent who could keep the lights on, water running and the boiler functioning.
But that world has changed.
The rise of flexible workspace operators changed the baseline expectation for what an office could feel like.
Then came the pandemic.
The shift that shook the foundations of the office entirely, forcing businesses and their people to ask a question that had never really been asked before: “why come to the office at all?”
The answer to that question is what has reshuffled the deck for everyone in the built environment.
The data is speaking… but is the industry listening?
Offices that have remained merely functional with four walls, a lift, and a reception desk have steadily lost customers. On the other hand, buildings that invested in experience, community and a distinct identity held onto their tenants longer, attracted new ones, and commanded better rents.
JLL’s 2024 Future of Work survey found that 70% of companies now consider workplace experience a key factor in their real estate decisions.
What this tells us is that brand (the way a building feels, the story it tells, and the community it fosters) is now a commercial lever. It isn’t a nice to have, nor is it a soft consideration. The building experience is a hard, measurable driver of performance.
We’re now in the hospitality industry
At TSP, we’ve been making this argument for a while.
Our whole operating model is built on the idea that the hospitality industry worked this out long before the property sector did. A great hotel gives you a consistent, and intentional experience, designed to make you want to come back.
So, this begs the question:
Why should an office building be any different?
Today’s landlords are operating in a market where customers have a plethora of options and are not afraid to use them. The average UK office lease length has been declining steadily for years.
Flexibility is no longer a premium, it’s an expectation.
And the landlords and operators who are winning are the ones who have realised that the question is no longer “can we fill the building?” It’s “can we keep it full?”
Keeping it full requires something the industry has never really had to develop before: a reason for people to stay.
The reason?
It’s that sense of identity, belonging, and care for the people inside a building. This is exhibit A of what a good brand strategy can do.
What comes next
This is the first piece in a four part series I’m writing on brand, marketing, and the evolving world of offices.
Over the next three articles, I want to dig into what tenants actually want now, why brand is your most underrated retention strategy, and what it really means to run a building with a clear sense of purpose.
The industry is waking up.
The question is, is it waking up fast enough?