Building a property brand around the feeling of home
30%
increase in branded clicks since launch
10.9%
increase in new home enquiries
The key opportunity was to create a space that felt like “modern heritage”, confident but warm, classic but future-focused.
“Partnering with The Escape was a collaborative and inspiring experience. They took the time to understand who we are and what we stand for. The result is a brand that perfectly balances where we’ve come from with where we’re going, capturing the care and confidence that define Bargate.”
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Bombay Sapphire Distillery, feeling the experience before arriving
Bombay Sapphire Distillery
Building a property brand around the feeling of home
Bargate builds fewer homes, with more care, in a market where most new builds look and sound the same. For its 20th year, we rebuilt the brand around that care, from a wordmark drawn from Bargate’s own porches to a website that takes buyers straight from browsing to enquiring, and organic website users rose 34% year on year.
What Bargate needed
Bargate knew exactly who they were. In our discovery workshop, the team summed it up in four words, “better not bigger”, and a core value of “we care”. Its homes are built with more character than most, and buyers often came back for a second. The brand wasn’t saying any of that. Next to the national housebuilders, which, to Bargate’s eye, “all look the same”, it risked being judged on price and postcode like everyone else.
Starting from the porch
We built the strategy from the team’s own words: a vision of better, not bigger, and a brand idea of Modern Heritage, a property developer with the heart of a family. The identity grew from there. The new wordmark takes its shapes from the porches Bargate is known for; a graphic device breaks the logo into room-like spaces, and a palette led by greens, with burgundy and navy modernised from the old brand, keeps a thread back to where the business came from.
Where the decision starts
Most buyers meet a housing development online long before they visit. We designed and built a new website that pulls plots and developments straight from Bargate’s sales system, shows what’s live and what’s coming soon, and sends every enquiry directly to the sales team. Search, register-interest forms and email sign-up sit on every development page, so the moment someone can picture themselves there, they can do something about it.
Every development with its own identity
Each new site has its own place to sell, so we name and brand developments as they come forward, shaped by the location and the buyers it needs to attract while staying recognisably Bargate. Since 2022, that’s included Heritage Place in Eastleigh, Shepherds Green in Hordle, Horizon Wood in Pennington, Pepperfields in Whiteparish, Eightknots in Pagham, Kilnham Rise in Allbrook and Hazley Copse in Totton.
Launched from the inside out
We launched the brand to Bargate’s own people first, in January 2025, then went public on 2 May to mark the company’s 20th year. A launch film, templates and 400 community boxes carried it into the places Bargate builds, and our ongoing marketing across social, email, SEO and paid search keeps it working.
What changed
- +34% organic website users, year on year
“New build homes”: page eight to page one of Google - +10.9% new home enquiries
- +30% branded clicks
Bargate now looks and sounds like the business it has always been: careful, confident and close to the places it builds. More buyers are finding it on their own terms, and every new development launches with a brand of its own and a direct line to the sales team.
“Partnering with The Escape was a collaborative and inspiring experience… a brand that perfectly balances where we’ve come from with where we’re going, capturing the care and confidence that define Bargate.”
Matt Lunney
Sales and Marketing Manager, Bargate Homes
