The Original Cottage Company

Holiday rental company Original Cottages were looking to the future of their brand and the direction they wanted to take. We helped them develop a brand proposition for two distinct target audiences, homeowners and holiday-makers.

The Original Cottage Company is a family-owned, Norfolk-based rentals company with 100s of holiday home properties across the UK. They were looking ahead to the future of the brand and asked us to help facilitate a workshop with senior stakeholders to discuss where the brand should go.

We began by looking at the existing company and found that, although it had been hugely successful in terms of growth and acquisition, the brand itself did not have a clear proposition for its target audiences. So we began the workshop by focusing on developing a proposition for Original Cottages, asking participants to generate ideas which would defining the brand in a clear and single-minded way, appeal to its target audiences and set it apart from the competition.

One difficulty was the vast difference in mindset between Original Cottages’ two target audiences, holiday-makers and homeowners. Homeowners want to attract guests to their property, while holiday-makers simply want to have a great time while away! So, we took one central idea generated in the workshop that perfectly summed up The Original Cottage Company, and adapted this to appeal specifically to the different target audiences, keeping the core ethos at the heart of the brand.

The propositions have been taken forward by Original Cottages, and are in the process of being applied to external communications and marketing.