Crafting Destinations and Brands for Commercial success and Lasting Value with Emma Collings

In this insight-packed episode of Bricks & More, Adrian Strittmatter sits down with Emma Collings – Group Head of Marketing at British Land – to explore how brand and marketing can transform bricks and mortar into living, breathing destinations.

With a career spanning retail, real estate, finance, and social enterprise, Emma brings a rare cross-sector perspective on creating places people remember, choose, and return to. 

She explains why understanding people’s shifting behaviours – whether they’re a B2B decision-maker or a lunchtime shopper – is at the heart of long-term asset value.

Key talking points:

🎯 How cross-sector experience fuels fresh thinking in real estate marketing

🤝 Why every stakeholder touchpoint – from planning to activation – shapes brand equity

🏙️ The role of “campus thinking” in meeting multiple needs throughout the day

📈 Why proving marketing’s impact in B2B is hard – and how to make the case

🕰️ How legacy and longevity give real estate marketing a unique responsibility

If you think brand and marketing in real estate is just about selling space, Emma will make you see it as a powerful engine for lasting value.

Emma’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-collings-54910021/
British Land: https://www.britishland.com/

Adrian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianstrittmatter 
Saentys: https://saentys.com/ 

Transcript

Adrian Strittmatter: 0:54

Today we'll be focusing on a key but often underestimated value driver in real estate, brand and marketing. In a sector that can sometimes be uniquely product led and sales driven, how do you create meaningful, long-term connections with your audiences? How do you turn an asset into a destination or a development into a brand that people remember, engage with, and choose time and time and time again. So in this episode, I want to dig into how branding and marketing generate lasting value for tenants, communities, and for investors. As such, I'm thrilled to welcome Emma Collings, head of marketing at britishland, a strategic and creative leader delivering high performing marketing across one of the UK's most significant real estate portfolios. With a career spanning real estate, retail, finance, social enterprise and beyond, Emma brings rare cross sector insight to the way places are positioned, experience and remembered. Emma's work elevates brand equity while delivering measurable value across assets, occupiers, communities, and the mothership corporate brand, which is British land. So let's dive straight in. Emma, welcome to Bricks and Mortar.

Emma Collings: 2:15

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Adrian Strittmatter: 2:16

Ah, that's quite right. A great pleasure. Um, just Wanted To start off with some, questions around your personal journey. how did you end up in, real estate and in the real estate sector?

Emma Collings: 2:27

well, I've actually moved around quite a bit and coming into British land, I had a phone call just to say, look, they, they're looking at retail in particular and I'd come from quite a long stint, in, in retail aside. And so I, I put my CV in and that's how I ended up joining British Land. But if you'd said from the beginning, would I end up in real estate, I would've questioned that quite hugely actually.

Adrian Strittmatter: 2:46

But no regrets.

Emma Collings: 2:47

But no regrets. No regrets at all. I mean, I've always worked in marketing, but it's been everything from kind of social enterprise, retail and now, now it's real estate and this stints been nine years. So it's, it's pretty, pretty long, pretty long time really.

Adrian Strittmatter: 2:59

And from that cross-sector expertise that you mentioned, what are the things that you think you've brought to real estate branding and marketing?'cause sometimes it has over the past been viewed as quite stayed and quite traditional. How has that helped you bring some dynamism to the. To that element of the industry.

Emma Collings: 3:15

so firstly, I'm hugely respectful of the real estate marketing because it's really quite complex. The stakeholders change throughout it. So I think that's the starting point of why I've enjoyed it for so long. the bit from retail, coming from retail was you are so heavily focused on the customer, their needs and their wants, and that gets, comes back to you weekly. So in terms of like the pace of retail, the consumers, how they behave, if you get that wrong, you know that on a Monday morning when you come in, and I think that element of you have a particular audience that you're looking at for real estate, what is it that you want to, what them you want them to know and making sure that you're following that through the journey. So I think they've, it's complimented to say it's complex. There's loads of stakeholders, but understanding who you are trying to influence because of the consumer side has been really helpful, certainly from a retail perspective. And

Adrian Strittmatter: 4:10

And do you feel that those rules kind of apply as well to the more B2B side of the marketing you've been doing?

Emma Collings: 4:18

Absolutely. So I think B2B is gonna go in a really interesting direction over the next kind of 10 years where you know your audience and you should know them very, very well, but the creativity element of getting their interest is going to be harder. Mm-hmm. And so you tend to find in B2B audiences that they, they operate in quite close networks, but the opening up of information and the opening up of digital means you're actually fighting quite a lot for, visibility, that awareness piece before you even got into the sales approach if, if a sales and marketing approach. And so you can't rest as easily on your laurels as you would almost like a consumer. Like they'll switch off in a second and I think a B2B audience is, isn't going to be that much different actually.

Adrian Strittmatter: 5:00

And would you say in terms of your role and the way that you see it developing, what would you say is, is that audience piece or another piece, what excites you the most at the moment?

Emma Collings: 5:09

Absolutely. I mean people, so that behavior of people, I think people are absolutely fascinating and when you see them at all different points of what they do, it's brilliant. and so if you take like the life cycle of a, of a building where you go into planning and then you're going into like there's a development piece and then you want to activate it, those, those stakeholders, those audiences change. And so your primary audience of who you're going for will also have a secondary audience that's trying to influence them. And it's getting that, I think getting that balance right between what's creative, where's your spend, how do you prove the impact of it? It's inevitably harder in a B2B audience because it's such a, it is often such a long, sales funnel to a certain extent, but it's also hugely rewarding because it's, it can be far more targeted and segmented in a, in a different way to say retail and consumer.

Adrian Strittmatter: 5:57

That's really interesting.'cause I think also because of the portfolio that you have and the mixed use element of that portfolio, you could have someone at different touch points on, let's say an estate acting as a retail consumer, f and b consumer, but then going back into the office and being more on the B2B side.

Emma Collings: 6:15

Absolutely. And, and a really good example of that is Broadgate. Mm-hmm. You know, that is what, 32 acres Utes predominantly office, workspace. But those people will leave for 15 minutes. They will go out and get their lunch. They will go and have a, you know, meet their friends for, for a meal in the evening. They'll go and do some shopping. They, your needs change and your wants change throughout that day. And that's that campus idea of fulfilling someone's lifestyle. Mm-hmm. But knowing that the dominant part of that is, is the work, is the working environment to start. But then flip that to a retail environment like Meadow Hall, which we investment manage, you'd be looking at it from is, are they here for destination shopping? Are they here to pop in?'cause they're more local. So the, the behaviors change. So you go back to people again, you, you constantly go back to people and behavior. Yeah.

Adrian Strittmatter: 6:59

And sort of circling maybe back a little bit and, and going to sort of one of the core things that we are trying to discover on the podcast, which is around sort of identifying and generating value for an asset, as you said, for the investors, for the stakeholders, for the community and the, and the visitors and tenants. How does that, how would you encapsulate that sentence about identifying and generating value in the context of branding and marketing?

Emma Collings: 7:28

So I almost like split into two parts. Generating value for a business is getting your product right and selling it at the price that you will need for the business. Okay. So that is ultimately what we are looking at. the broader piece, which I love about real estate is there's legacy attached to it. Mm-hmm. So some of the decisions that you make, the responsible decisions are very different to, potentially other industries because it's around for so much longer. Mm-hmm. And as it should be. But when you look at that from creating value, that means there is creating business value and then there's creating community value. So one of the most rewarding parts of my role has absolutely been working with our sustainability teams, environmental and social. Because you are faced with how do you engage like a local community, how do you bring them in? Because it has much, a much more long-term impact. You almost got a guardianship over space versus completely owning it in its entirety with the need to generate the business value, but that is about making it the right place for people. Mm-hmm.

Adrian Strittmatter: 8:26

And then in terms of the decisions to, and this is maybe a more sort of. In investment led question, but in terms of holding the asset or exiting the asset, that it is also that long-term element of saying, even if we do exit the asset, you will be passing on that legacy piece and that long-term vision to the new, to the, to the potential new owner or new steward of that property.

Emma Collings: 8:48

Yeah, abs, absolutely. I mean, that's why it's called Lifecycle, I suppose. Mm-hmm. Is that we will come in at a particular moment, do what we do, the, you know, the British Land effect to a certain extent, and then when it's ready, it, it can move on. But it's not a quick that, I don't think it's necessarily quick in, in, in real estate. Mm-hmm. In terms, so you, we've got really long holdings if you take Regents Place. We've been there for such a number of years making those changes. It's, it's certainly different in terms of the life, life cycle that you'd find on a consumer side. And I think that's the bit where it's, it's really differed for me in my, my own career.

Adrian Strittmatter: 9:20

Again, going back, we talked about very quickly how you measured the value. You know, it's sort of selling or selling at the product at the, at the right price, but. How do you then, in terms of the, the marketing and the branding side of it, how do you, it's a question that we always get asked at the agency as well. How do you measure, why should I invest this money? What's the ROI? How do you measure that Marketing and branding

Emma Collings: 9:41

Yeah. So measure it in terms of, well, ultimately we are supporting a leasing function. If you're gonna take the pure, the pure business approach, which means making sure that all the material that's needed is, is available for them. And that could be anything from fly-throughs to CGIs brochures, to, to the tours that you have to launch a, an asset. They are very key deliverables. You either did them or you didn't at a particular time. Yeah. The brand bit becomes slightly more complex because you can't land like a spaceship in certain parts. So you have to be really considerate of, yes, we want to bring something to market, but how does it reflect the values of the people that are there and the people that are going to be coming? And so that's, I think that's, you are getting closer into the reputation of like, what's your behavior? What type, where are you gonna serve this information? And therefore what's your message? And making sure you land that quite well. And that's, that's where I would see the difference between the two is that you have to, you can't just walking and decide that you are going to do it in a complete way. It's much more considered and intentional because of the people that you are impacting

Adrian Strittmatter: 10:43

and then asset by asset. And then also how would that work in relation to the, the overarching sort of British land listed company, you know, British Land, British, so listed company brand,

Emma Collings: 10:55

it's probably easier to talk in levels. You've got kind of British Land Master brand. If we're gonna go into terms of like, we are really good at what we do, in terms of, investing, developing, making sure that those changes come and, and they come in the right way. You then go down into effectively like product divisions. Mm-hmm. So retail offices, residential, and then they will have a, how, what is it that we do that in, that reinforces our position at a britishland level. And then when you get down to a place that is very much that lives and breathes. Mm-hmm. And that can be anything from, that's the customer you're trying to get in the business, but then also the people, the users, the consumers that are using that space. And it's remembering that, well, there's two questions I learned quite early on in my career, which is like, what's the story? How do you want it to land? And if you answer those questions against your key audience, you'll go, oh, I've got a bit of a. Gap here, this is not gonna go very well. And I think that's the broader piece of thinking about how could it impact if I make those decisions. But it's making sure that the people around the table, there are different voices around there because it's too easy to make a mistake if you go, well, I think it should be this. Mm. And that's what we're gonna do.

Adrian Strittmatter: 12:03

This is maybe a sidetrack, but going back to the the British land. Brand, the story that you want to tell and how is it going to land? How useful or how, how is British land perceived in the market at, at those different levels? I think we're both very clear on a B two, B level. how, how well known is it on a B2C level?

Emma Collings: 12:24

Well, not particularly, but you will have interacted with our spaces. Mm-hmm. And I think there's an element of modesty that I like working for Britishland is that, how much does everybody need to know? Everything. Mm-hmm. And so there is, if you want to speak to us, you want to find us out. Absolutely. But if we do, we need to be Coca-Cola. No. Mm-hmm. And so that's where you have to be really careful, I think, where your customer is and where your influencing, like who your, we talk about key decision makers and your influences around the table. that is very targeted, but that's the same in every industry. I think quite often when people look at consumer, and this is my retail hat back on, is well, everyone knows who they are. That might be true, but they are targeting in on a particular audience and an influence and what's around them. And so, coming back to I, I was at Pandora jewelry before. The person that wears the jewelry is somebody, but the per, the people that buy the jewelry are very different. So you would expect it to have much more broader consumer impact. Mm-hmm. That's not necessary for every industry. Mm-hmm. It's important that people know the places and they interact with the places. Is it important? They know every single level of that and how much are you prepared to put money behind it? That that's very different. And those are the discussions you have with, with within the business.

Adrian Strittmatter: 13:44

Yeah, because you can see different developers and landlords trialing out different things. Yes. And seeing whether they have a consumer facing side to their brand.

Emma Collings: 13:56

And sometimes it does, you know, sometimes it makes sense to do that. Um, but ultimately I think if you go back to the customer needs and wants, like, what do I wanna know? What do I need to know if I need to find out what's available? Mm-hmm. You'll come up with the right answers to that. And they, we've had examples of where, certainly in retail, so if you think when I sat retail side, I would've interacted with the other big, landlords and developers in, in that role where those have come in fully branded everything. Not necessarily, still here today. So you kind of, you, you can learn the hard way as well. Um, but those, those assets are still going on and they're still being, um, you know, regenerated and, and people still see them as part of the places that they live.

Adrian Strittmatter: 14:36

It's interesting as well, isn't it?'cause you have, you've got different ambassadors, I would say for the British Land brand. You've got obviously your different assets and then you've also productized, haven't you? Yeah. Across, you know, different sort of, let's say office office products as well. Well,

Emma Collings: 14:50

Well, it meets the needs of lifestyle. Mm-hmm. So of course we create best in class workspace. So that could be your huge HQ for a hedge fund, or that could be the more flexible offering of story as you are, as you are growing as a, a established SME. But you are, you are really scaling. And I think that's, that's what's interesting about real estate. You're having those discussions early on, and then you haven't got businesses moving in for maybe, you know, 4, 5, 6, 10 years. Mm-hmm. We've just completed one broadgate at Broadgate. And it takes a long time to build something of that scale.

Adrian Strittmatter: 15:24

And so that's a, that's a really interesting one with regards to sort of generating value through the brand and the marketing. Um, there's this one question about how do you, how do you separate high performing marketing campaigns and brands versus the sort of forgettable ones? What would you say, are there any sort of key rules that people can follow or three key points or two Good, even better?

Emma Collings: 15:45

Creative. Creative and data. We can notice patterns in data, very quickly. Like is it landing, is it not landing? This is the beauty of marketing now, in terms of you can check all of that. 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you kind of, you did your testing and it cost you probably a fortune to do it. You went live and you, you could to a certain extent, you crossed your fingers.'cause it's a kind of an art and science piece. Yeah. the bit here is I still believe in the one second rule of advertising. Mm-hmm. that I need to command someone's attention very quickly to continue with that discussion with them. Mm-hmm. And if you have that in the back of your mind of. Just see the creative and see what happens in terms of how people feel around the table. That has been really helpful to me. But then you back it with the data of the testing. But if you start to sit with creative and go, well, it kind of ticks this box and it ticks that box and it does it, you, you start to convince yourself and ultimately your audience are gonna look at it very quickly and go, yes or no?

Adrian Strittmatter: 16:39

Yes or no. Yeah.

Emma Collings: 16:41

Instinctively, and that's where it gets hard.

Adrian Strittmatter: 16:43

And another probably unanswerable question maybe, but how many yes and nos do you need? And let's assume they are yeses before you see conversion or that you've seen that data radically changing with the recurring messages or brands?

Emma Collings: 16:56

That's a really good question. I think some of it's experience from consumer of going, I think that's gonna work and not gonna work. Yeah. And this is what I'm looking for. So this, when I talk about the paciness of retail in mm-hmm. you learn, you just, it starts to become inbuilt.'cause you're doing so many, so many different versions of this over the year, over a number of years. how many yeses and nos, I think people start to spend longer looking at something, or they are, certainly from a digital perspective, it's

Adrian Strittmatter: 17:24

the more they see it,

Emma Collings: 17:25

the more they see it, the more they see

Adrian Strittmatter: 17:25

see. Oh,

Emma Collings: 17:26

it. Okay. So you kind of have to test, I think there's an element of do, do they stop? Do they remember it? Does anyone talk to you about it? But you can do that from an internal perspective before it's even gone anywhere. So I think that bit of your internal audience is really important in marketing because if people from the business don't necessarily recognize it. You might not have it quite right as you're going out. the other bit of how the advocacy part of not only people seeing it, spending time looking at it, what happens behind your websites, what happens on social media? Are people engaging with it? You start to see the patterns if you're only taking one area of that and, and trying to form the answer's, no, but it paints a picture and, and part of marketing's job is to look at some of those patterns and, and interpret them. Mm-hmm.

Adrian Strittmatter: 18:09

and going sort of back to the asset. And as you said, so there's a very specific relationship between the British Land Mother brand and then the specific assets that you choose to brand. Um, how would you say, or marketing and branding can help in the eyes of the specific audience they want to target. How can, how can you help reposition that asset to give it, as you said, a new lease of life, a new purpose within the community? How have you seen that working?

Emma Collings: 18:41

Well, it's understanding how do people see something now. Mm-hmm. And how would you like them to see it? And then taking people on that journey and, and how quickly a business wants to move, then that's where you start to build your marketing budget in the middle. Like if you wanna get there fast, that's quite a heavy, that's quite a relatively heavy budget. Lots of activities, lots of tracking through that. Mm-hmm. It's very close management. If it is actually this is going to grow relatively organically. You don't have to necessarily be jumping in and putting huge amounts of money behind it. And those are the decisions I think most businesses are making.'cause in an ideal world, you do it for everything. Mm-hmm. But we have to be, understanding of what the business environment is at that time and then where it, where we need to intercept or, or support. But ultimately, if you have one product and you are going to change it into something else, there is going to be a need to communicate well and, and marketing and comms is what forms that, that basis. And, and ultimately the brand is business strategy. And then how do you communicate it through your audience? And

Adrian Strittmatter: 19:41

Do you think there's sometimes a disconnect between sort of product positioning and brand positioning?

Emma Collings: 19:48

Yes. Yeah. brand position is absolutely born from business strategy. Mm-hmm. What are we trying to achieve overall and how do we get there? Product positioning is a smaller sector of that. and if you only do product, you are not necessarily reinforcing the, the broader piece. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't give you, doesn't give you flexibility to move, if you are, if it's just pure product all the time.

Adrian Strittmatter: 20:10

And so to create that long lasting value, and this is probably maybe a bit of a directed question, I dunno. When do you see the best moment for people including yourselves or ourselves involved in brand? when do they start? In an ideal world,

Emma Collings: 20:28

an ideal world, it's at the beginning, isn't it? Like it's, say, I was gonna give you one thing that surprised me. When you're in a consumer environment, like marketing's one of the first people at the table, Because how that is communicated outside is so crucial to selling week after week after week at the levels in real estate. It's a bit, it's harder sometimes you do. it's great to be around the table, but you won't, you won't always necessarily recognize how early on it would help in that process. But I think that's B2B audiences. That's B2B businesses generally. Generally general, yeah. Yeah. And, and a lot of that is once you're dealing with high value, it's a longer, it's, it's a much longer timeline

Adrian Strittmatter: 21:07

Mm-hmm. A

Emma Collings: 21:08

a lot harder. a lot harder. You know, there's so many different plans that go on the, on the table to start with.

Adrian Strittmatter: 21:13

And in a very meaningful way. Have you seen brand and marketing people being at the table right, right at the beginning, who have had an ability to actually even influence the way that the product looks and feels? I mean, we've had times where we've had to on certain mandates to do product market fit. So before they start building, they do go and test it. I mean, have you seen that happening?

Emma Collings: 21:40

It's starting to happen, but no, not in, not in the depth you would do in other industries. I think, it's, I mean, that's a really good question. There are so many twists and turns in real estate. I don't think it's as, it's not as linear as you would expect it in other places. So I'm not sure I would see that as necessary as a criticism. I think it's the nature of something that lives and breathes and takes a long time to, to bring to market.

Adrian Strittmatter: 22:08

Mm-hmm. And in terms of, so those twists and turns obviously follow kind of the asset life cycle.

Emma Collings: 22:15

Yes.

Adrian Strittmatter: 22:16

How have you seen the role and of brand and marketing to be able to create value along that asset lifecycle? Have you seen that changing, extending where the brand stories have been used for various purposes from, you know, speaking to the community during the development, to leasing and then to activation

Emma Collings: 22:35

Well, telling the story. Mm-hmm. So I think, if, if anything I take Norton F Gate mm-hmm. It's not too far from here actually, is you've got the architect story design, you've got the construction story, craftsmanship. You've got the, the behavioral, like part of the science, you know, the science part of like, how should people behave in space? What should it look like? there are so many different players in this. It's almost, if I could run the credits on a building, it'd be like running the credits on a film type thing. So it's so, and I think those stories could be told in an even stronger way. Mm-hmm. and that's probably this like shared from a marketing perspective, this shared media of actually showing everyone's contribution in the same way you would do on a, on a film perhaps. Mm-hmm.

Adrian Strittmatter: 23:18

Mm-hmm.

Emma Collings: 23:19

and everyone comes to, they want to create the best, they bring their expertise in various different areas, whether that's the lifts or whether that's the, you know, the, the cobblestones, but it's so intentional and so considered. Those are the stories that we can tell much better, certainly from a marketing and brand perspective.

Adrian Strittmatter: 23:36

Yeah. And then, so maybe going in asset by asset, how do you, how do you ensure the tie up between the asset specific brands or even the product ones that we mentioned? Like stories?

Emma Collings: 23:51

Yes.

Adrian Strittmatter: 23:52

What is the kind of, what are your metrics to make sure that they are in line or that they feel part of the British land family or brand family, for lack of a better definition.

Emma Collings: 24:06

I think there's more of a look and feel between British and British land divisions, more so than between the divisions and. The place. Okay. Because if you take, you know, take Glasgow, Fort the, it's almost like a next generation retail park. Mm-hmm. Trying to look like Paddington Central. Mm-hmm. But the audience that's going there, that's you, it starts to feel a bit more uncomfortable. So you end up with, there are, there are, there are things that naturally will overlap, but you don't wanna end up in the position where you turn up somewhere and go, well, I thought this was my space and, but that looks like my space. And it goes back to that customer and user again of what, what should and shouldn't it look like for the people that want to use that space. And I come back to the retail side of, we've seen try to like pre-amp everything, unless the product is exactly the same for the customers and their wants and needs, it's actually quite unusual to, to brand everything. Exactly. Mm-hmm. Exactly the same.

Adrian Strittmatter: 25:09

And in terms of the B2B audience, going back to that slightly as well in terms of making sure it's not necessarily only about creating value, but that they see value in the product. Have you seen. Going back to the marketing and the branding and the campaign side of things, more and more we're gonna call kind of business profiling or business personalization to make sure that when you're going to talk to an audience to say, let's say to a business about a building, that you are able to target the different units within that business. So whether it's hr, whether it's brand and sustainability, you find that mess that's kind of sub messaging

Emma Collings: 25:45

Well, that's

Adrian Strittmatter: 25:45

quite a lot used, quite a lot. Sorry.

Emma Collings: 25:47

Yeah, absolutely. And that's why messaging is quite complex of understanding who's gonna make the final decision, but who's gonna influence around the table. And fortunately we live in a world where there is so much information coming out and there's technology now where you can actually see what does the position of a business want to have very quickly. But of course, hr, finance, procurement, sustainability, they're all around those tables. And we need to, we are, and we need to be prepared. And that's where bespoke material is created, you know, this is high value, high value status. It's worth putting the effort in. Mm-hmm. It's absolutely worth putting the effort in.

Adrian Strittmatter: 26:22

And in terms of sort of, I would say mandates that you are the most proud of in terms of seeing, as you said, that lasting legacy, have you got case studies where there's been that repositioning and that you can see that vision taking form and that momentum growing over time?

Emma Collings: 26:39

Yes. And I think this is where British land team across the board are brilliant. and the people that work there, the colleagues that we work with are spectacular. If you take Broadgate as an example, I joined what, 2016? 2017. The aspiration and what it is. So we're coming to the end almost with the one broadgate being mm-hmm. Just pced and two, a fay being come together. You can really see the change from this city, kind of like institution to some place that people just hang out and enjoy. Mm-hmm. walking through the circle today, you see, almost feels quite European on a, on a summer stay. Like within, within the city of London. Oh, fresco. Yeah, exactly. And I think I, I walked past Exchange Square and the, it's, it's school holidays. There's like a couple of kids, like paddling in the pool, like mm-hmm. Could reverse that to the 1980s. That just wouldn't happen. Yeah. So that's an example. That's, I think that's a really good example of, of, of what British Hand has, has done well. But equally when you look at the, the people that come into the different places across the country and how it services their life. That's part of, that's part of the job. Mm-hmm. but it takes time and it takes time for people to feel comfortable in those places if they haven't necessarily been there before. And I, I come back to during COVID, we've got a theater at Regents Place called Noar Armor Theater. brilliant. punches well above its weight in terms of what it delivers creatively within the uk. During COVID created NDT Broadgate, which was a place like a couple of floors within an office, within a, an office building for rehearsals for, for some of the theater production companies, about 700 of them. So it's quite a lot. And I think what our response to space in terms of what was going on in COVID and what came outta that was some great theater productions that went up and down the country. Mm-hmm. That's a good example of creating value, but in a different way at a time when, we all had to do things in a very different way. So there are those small stories that I think. Are great story is to tell about responsible business and then there are the bigger stories to tell, which is the business bit. When you start to get to investors, that is, how you're making your money and how you're delivering that type of value.

Adrian Strittmatter: 28:49

And then going back to Broadgate.'cause I think it's a really interesting example and you mentioned before it felt quite European, which then brought me to a bit of a mind struggle, which is I am still trying to find a European business campus, for lack of a better word,

Emma Collings: 29:10

Yeah.

Adrian Strittmatter: 29:11

which has the field that Broadgate has. I think

Emma Collings: 29:15

they're still,

Adrian Strittmatter: 29:17

I would say arguably, not all of them obviously, but some of the ones that we've visited through our work still on that journey where you guys are kind of getting to the end of it, how, what informed that journey? Obviously there are different, you know, different ways of interacting at work socially, loads of different requirements. But what do you think changed going from the eighties snapshot to the paddling pool snapshot, for lack of a better metaphor.

Emma Collings: 29:42

Yeah, that's a good question. I think there's a lot of bravery and boldness. Mm-hmm. And a lot of planning, from a listed company. Yeah. From a listed company. And I think, you know, s Coming into British and those discussions are already, taking place and looking, looking at what could we create, what could the immunity offer be for office campus workers? What was the desire from the city of London in terms of what they wanted to do across London? And, and this is why I often talk about guardianship, that there is a lot that comes from the business, but there's also a lot of external stakeholders that are part of that journey as well. So it is, it's far broader. and it's interesting you to say that because we are proud of the campuses mm-hmm. Because of that mix and the feel that you have from them and what sets them apart from other places which are dominant for office or workspace. So, and the market responds very well to that because you can, you can walk onto Broadgate, you can walk onto Paddington, you can walk onto Regents and, and if you take even what's been happening at Canada Water, which is a broader regeneration, you can feel the difference in, in the development and the changes that are there.

Adrian Strittmatter: 30:43

And going on to Canada Water

Emma Collings: 30:45

I thought you would after that. Yeah, I mentioned it. Easy,

Adrian Strittmatter: 30:47

easy segue. Thanks Emma. Um,

Emma Collings: 30:49

Um,

Adrian Strittmatter: 30:50

obviously that's a slightly, as you said, the slightly different proposal, whether there's a lot of, oh, let's say Broadgate reinvention here, there's a lot of invention. Yes. Um,

Emma Collings: 31:02

how,

Adrian Strittmatter: 31:03

in terms of the future proofing, which is virtually impossible obviously'cause we never know, but the future looking, let's say, how, how does that process work at British Land in terms of saying, this is what's going to create the most value for the community. This is what creating a great place in X, Y, Z when it's developed. How does that work?

Emma Collings: 31:21

So Canada Auto's a really interesting one, and I haven't worked on it that closely until quite recently really. but I did read about it in the British Land book when I first came. So it is noted in terms of how we

Adrian Strittmatter: 31:32

did your due diligence.

Emma Collings: 31:33

I did my due diligence. I bought the book from, from Amazon. I've got it. And, um, actually what's really good is you create these, quite the British line creates these teams, it kickstart it and turbocharges it, and then it starts to develop out. So if you take Canada Water, it's, it's been many years in the making, and you've got, you know, Roger Madeline, Kings cross the team there is, they're, they're phenomenal. but once again, you talk about future proofing. It's London, it's, it's so central. It's like a couple of stops from mm-hmm. you know, a couple of stops from Waterloo. Our job is to make sure that people realize that. So the fundamentals are, are there. Mm-hmm. and so you come back to marketing and branding, which is even the subtlety of saying. What do people think of? Well, you don't say Waterloo London. You say London Waterloo, and everyone goes, right, you're in Central London. That was the, you know, the Westfield strategy was to say, we're gonna call ourselves, Westfield, London. And you knew, but it was in Shepherd's Bush. So you start to work out what is it that people start to respond to, to understand what it is that you are creating. And, and that's part of the innovation part. You are bringing something that people don't yet understand, but they need to, and, and you want, you wanna speed that up.

Adrian Strittmatter: 32:43

And in terms of the mix of asset classes down at Canada Water, then, how is that, I mean, that's a subtle balance as well, isn't it, of, of mixing those things across the development pipeline as well, where meanwhile space and so on and so forth, to try and give a sense of what the place will be in the future.

Emma Collings: 33:00

And it needs flexibility to change because if we go back over the past 10 years of everything, I mean, I left university, the financial crash happened and I thought, great, that's it. We're done. Now we've done that big, that big financial bang. and it's

Adrian Strittmatter: 33:13

oh no.

Emma Collings: 33:14

Oh no, it is gonna keep coming and so do more. Yeah. And, and so when you think about the, the, the expertise of a developer or a landlord, it's about saying, this is where we are now. This is what it looks like going forward. What's the flexibility? And you can see that in the office portfolio from going. there's a lot more flex space. I mean, we, we called that back in 20 16, 20 17 with stories. So it's kind of, you gotta be looking ahead and looking at lifestyles and behavior and the, and the change, not in those patterns. And I'm not gonna lay claim that that's, that's marketing, but, that's the marketing function. But it certainly, we helped. We helped. But certainly from a, a business perspective of having that, it's obviously having the insights behind it, but it's London, it's living and breathing. And it's being respectful, being respectful of that.

Adrian Strittmatter: 34:01

And are there any sort of, examples that you have within the British land portfolio of assets or products that were really struggling in the market that really benefited from, or a change of perception thanks to brand and marketing, let's say the product, without changing necessarily the product or the approach, but just like needed to sit down, have a think about it, changed as you said, the narrative and it completely transformed the kind of, you know, fortunes if it were of this asset. So

Emma Collings: 34:33

So I'm gonna read you back to, uh, the marketing branding. I came in on the retail side of the portfolio, and when I think of how we influence key decision makers, it's everything from thought leadership, research papers. You know, people often think about advertising and it's, it's broader and it was retail parks, true value of stores. If I go back and say the research that was released, true value of stores, it was like, it's over. It's over. Everything's online. Everything's gonna be online, nothing's gonna change. The success of retail parks is actually looking at the market and seeing the change in consumer and lifestyle behavior. And Glasgow Fort, Eastside Park, Fort Ked, they are next generation retail parts. They're like, they're outdoor shopping centers to a certain extent. Mm-hmm. So when we came, certainly coming in as a retail, I was like, what is this? Mm-hmm. You are either in a shopping center or you are, you are not.

Adrian Strittmatter: 35:21

Oh, you're not. Or,

Emma Collings: 35:22

um, and I think changing the perception of how it's spoken about and what type of brands, 10 years ago, you would not have had some of the big fashion brands at some of these locations. That is progression and change. And the occupancy is, is what, 99% of British land. Mm. But yet, if you flip back to the true value of stores of us saying this, these stores are gonna be really valuable. We have felt the pressure of e-commerce, but things will settle. And I suppose it's a bit like physics. Even if it swings completely one way, it's likely to land somewhere in the middle. And it, it's, those are the patterns that are being looked at.

Adrian Strittmatter: 35:55

No, that's a really good point.'cause we, we always, well, especially when COVID happened and even before, viewed working from home or shopping online to present similar risks to the asset classes that they influenced. So you've given me another really nice segue with regards to retail parks. Are you guys also shifting the narrative, the perception around offices? Or do you think there's a slower than expected, but also natural progression back to offices? How are you viewing that?

Emma Collings: 36:26

No, I think we operate in a world of media and discussions and pros and cons and everything. The truth is retail, but if I come to retail parts is they fulfill a part in people's lifestyle. Mm-hmm. And when you are able to go and get something and, and, and shop across something is a lot easier, the idea that that would all completely go and there wouldn't be anything else is.

Adrian Strittmatter: 36:49

is too general, is

Emma Collings: 36:50

It's too much of a general statement. and if you look in the retail classes, say, you know, your high streets tea shopping centers to your retail parts to say retail's failing is just way too much of a generalization, just generally. So general statements I don't tend to particularly like,'cause they're not particularly helpful. But then when you come to offices, once again, you are turbo charging your business. Is that better when people are together and they can hash it out and, disagree? If you've, if you're fortunate enough doing a business where no one disagrees, I mean that's, that's quite an interesting place to be. But what does that mean in terms of changing things and pushing things forward and. Technology does a lot for us. There's no doubt about it. And I'm sure you'll segue into AI at some stage in this discussion way, ways. But the idea, I think we're starting to learn that the idea that it's gonna come in and replace things entirely, you know, move things around and change it, absolutely. But replace entire, no, but, and, but you do need to have like the little speedboats ahead saying, what will change? How is it gonna change? How does going back to your product, are you giving something to the market that you've got the needs and wants for? And how are you gonna communicate that? And you are always coming back into even, you know, messaging, which is a core part of marketing.

Adrian Strittmatter: 38:06

Mm-hmm. No, no, completely. And I think what, on a previous episode, what I found interesting is that one of our guests to talk to a big retail, CEO, and this was, you know, pretty eye-opening, which said that they made more money from their bricks and mortar stores than they did online. And that the more. And that the online element was the actual advertising flagship, but the actual moneymaker with a bricks and mortar.

Emma Collings: 38:30

absolutely. And I, I could tell you that firsthand. So, the way part of Pandora jewelry's growth strategy was, so it came in wholesale, in jewelers. Mm-hmm. Then it decided to go franchise and then it decided to go owner operated. That happened in a very short space of time, but to open up stores, you'd be looking at what's the activity in the local area, Google search at the time, and you would know that.

Adrian Strittmatter: 38:52

that.

Emma Collings: 38:53

There was really good indications that if you popped a store in that space, that the search interest would yes, generate e-com spend, but it also generate spend within, within the

Adrian Strittmatter: 39:02

store. within physical store.

Emma Collings: 39:03

And that was seen, that's over 10 years ago now. So the idea of, that's why it's important to understand what's going on in search around your product.'cause it doesn't necessarily mean that they immediately want to buy online, but it certainly means that a certain area has particular interest in it and therefore there's an opportunity and a need. Mm-hmm. And don't forget that physical interaction is quite often more memorable than tech interaction. So you can end up with great customer service in place. Will your return, you might buy more on like elements online, but the, that piece around, can you push the basket price up? Can you, what can you bring someone? It's, it's a very different environment and that's why it's quite, quite theater driven and that impacts real estate across the board. Mm-hmm. That's not just.

Adrian Strittmatter: 39:48

retail. And I think that's really interesting.'cause that always brings me back to one of my random anecdote. We used to do a lot of delivery with one of the big retailers, and what I found is that the actual delivery drivers who would bring your shopping to the door were actually the only human interaction that you'd have with that brand. And I felt they were constantly, and maybe it's just a personal experience, but also good, really good sales reps. Yes. They were, they were super helpful and they represented, they ba basically became delivery drivers and brand ambassadors at the same time.

Emma Collings: 40:18

Yes. Those front facing roles are so important. Mm-hmm. And they come in so many different shapes and and sizes. And I think, even core things like your postman and those types of, those types of roles where you're interacting, they will become even more important. they'll become even more important in, in your life

Adrian Strittmatter: 40:35

and your brand. So, so that's really interesting. And took things like the human facing side of. of, I would say a a, a British land property that you are experiencing, what would be those touch points?

Emma Collings: 40:47

Well, absolutely. When you go in for an office into reception, like mm-hmm. The, you know, friendly smile and someone being able to direct you somewhere. but you've had the tech element as in how to get there, making sure in the right place. So you, yeah. If you are taking a customer journey, there are moments where digital and tech play a role and there are moments where people play a role. Mm-hmm. and that's the same evening in, in retail. So some, some of it's us, some of it's the, the brands and the customers, but those interactions are constant throughout your, your journey there. Mm-hmm.

Adrian Strittmatter: 41:17

In terms of sort

Emma Collings: 41:18

of.

Adrian Strittmatter: 41:19

and We are getting to ai. the, the, the shifts we've talked about, the, the, the more, more and more prevalence as you mentioned on data and especially audience data, but how are you seeing sort of tech, namely AI influencing the ways that you produce marketing content, but also the ways that you reach out and get out to the audiences?

Emma Collings: 41:41

I mean, AI's spectacular, isn't it? I mean, we are in this, I'm actually, I'm just starting from MEA at the moment, so I've got a lecturer who says it's equal threat and opportunity, which is really exciting place to be, but not for the faint hearted.

Adrian Strittmatter: 41:53

Mm-hmm.

Emma Collings: 41:53

Mm-hmm. Because making sure you get certain elements right. That's, it's, it's not, once again, noticing patterns. So you can speed up, you can turbocharge some of the delivery of the items. certainly the material. You have to be careful that you are not, that once your prompts are right and what comes out is truly reflective of the type of audience you're going to. And I think if you're a business that is looking at next generation, it's not gonna be the average of the average that comes out of, of a chat GPT or Claude or, or Gemini. so it's just. Your first pass is excellent. It gets you started and then you lift. Mm-hmm. That's where I'd see the importance coming from. The bit around here is training models on your own, cust your own business data. Mm-hmm. So we saw, I mean, we transfer have just come in the past kind of couple of days. They've said if you, if anyone sends anything via we transfer, we are gonna own it all and we are gonna train the models and, and everything. And it was, we don't use, we transfer, but we might accept a, we transfer. So you immediately go, okay, what does this mean? Opens us up. Mm-hmm. That said, today they just announced, actually, sorry, that's the wrong communication that's gone out. Oops. Oops. Exactly. And, and, but that's the level of volatility that we've got is. You still want to show the creativity. It can't, anything that becomes homogenous, you will find that other brands start to lift it in a different way. And, and it just sets a new, a new playing field, really. Mm-hmm. And there's a period of time where there is absolutely competitive advantage in, in really embracing that with being really cautious about the risks that's associated with it. But, I think that's huge opportunity for marketing teams. Definitely. Yeah. You can get involved in so much more interesting'cause kind of admin's kind of under control to a

Adrian Strittmatter: 43:33

certain Mm-hmm.

Emma Collings: 43:34

Mm-hmm. In a different way. And,

Adrian Strittmatter: 43:36

and specifically then also with regards to utilizing those tools internally as well, on your sort of day-to-day or the team's day-to-day within the marketing department, which would you say is the most prevalent?

Emma Collings: 43:48

So, one of our favorite, day-to-day and going going forward. So it is, it is prevalent. we use a software called clickup, which we love. So it's like a digital workspace. Mm-hmm. And, our products are sitting within there and we've got access, but it, what allows us to do is summarize so it very quickly, so if you've got something that's happened over the past couple of years and different people have been involved in it, you can summarize it and get everything, very quickly. And we, we are talking like seconds versus trying to go. Can you just gimme a bit of an update on that and can you write that out and send me an email and what email was that attached to straight away? And then you can go into. What are, you know, almost like what are the pros and cons of this? What could we do? Because there's never really a black and white answer on everything. It's, it's got so many different elements to it. And that's been really helpful. And going back to the kind of product, you know, the life cycle of an asset, if you're able to do that over a five year period, yeah, think how powerful that could be and how many, how many mistakes could be avoided. But equally, how many of the great things you did you could pull back and use again.

Adrian Strittmatter: 44:51

Yeah, that's really good.

Emma Collings: 44:52

good.

Adrian Strittmatter: 44:53

Also more mundane. I'm just thinking you mentioned that as like my, my handover notes.

Emma Collings: 44:57

well, and this is it. It's that it has got rid of handover notes considerably. Well, you can say this is linked here, here, here, and here. And then you go in and you can find it. And because the teams there, it just brings everyone together in a much easy way. You can get rid of those where we're gonna sit down and do a big update meeting on this. And so that frees up time to do other things. Yeah. So, but I mean, what do they talk? It's, there's three ease of ai and that is the efficiency bit. But for me, the effectiveness is you can create something. Mm-hmm. See how, what they think an audience could react to it. I'm not gonna say that you absolutely know, but you get more of an indication than what you did 15 years ago. We'd go, well, I've done quite a lot of this testing. I sat in this room and I listened to a focus group. Still hugely important, but you can do some of that testing before you then go into anything that's too big.

Adrian Strittmatter: 45:45

Yeah, no, completely. I agree. One. I dunno. Key question I wanted to ask to close off'cause we're both active in the branding and marketing space. I'd be quite interested to get to your point on this. What do you, what do you think is the, the biggest myth that you hear around, you know, real estate marketing positive or negative in terms of what you hear on a day-to-day basis

Emma Collings: 46:07

Biggest

Adrian Strittmatter: 46:07

that you are constantly having to go No, no, let me, that that's not true.

Emma Collings: 46:12

I dunno if I wanna say that it's discretionary spend in, in an investment company. No, I think there are, it's often perceived as being quite fluffy. and I do think that is on us. That's on us. because when you're dealing with different people within the business, how you arrive at the table and talk about things. That value bit. Like who's across the table? Yeah. What's the value? You wanna talk about it? I could talk to you about brand, design, fonts, colors, not many people wanna have a chat with me about that, but it's exactly,

Adrian Strittmatter: 46:47

no, definitely. Yeah.

Emma Collings: 46:48

And that's fine. Mm-hmm. and I think that's the bit of, you know, someone said, I, I know my marketing spends great, but I dunno which half of it that's not helped us at all in being, in quoting things like that. But, you can now show much more of a direct impact over a longer period of time. And the, the software and the tools that we have makes that a, a lot easier.

Adrian Strittmatter: 47:10

Yeah, no, completely.

Emma Collings: 47:11

But it comes down to who's the audience you're trying to go out to, what's their wants and needs and making sure you are, you're laser focused on them. And then the other bit of, the broader audience that are going to influence making sure that you've got those, those stages in place. Mm-hmm.

Adrian Strittmatter: 47:25

Mm-hmm. Is, is it's like designing metrics for every single sort of moment in time, isn't it

Emma Collings: 47:29

really? Yes. Yeah. And, and let's be frank. when we look at, like, reach stats and we go, oh, 1 billion eyes on this. Like, no one quite understands stuff like that. Yeah. And, and, and breaking that down and saying, well, we're now in a world where you take X amount of communication in, we are trying to get this amount from somebody becomes more understandable. So when you start to look at these big numbers, it, it makes more sense for people that aren't necessarily in this field. but I always think, say what you're gonna say out loud and see to a particular, you know, your, your own, I suppose your tribe to a certain extent, the people around you that you can test things on and say, does that make sense?

Adrian Strittmatter: 48:08

Yeah. Do you understand what

Emma Collings: 48:09

Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you understand what I'm trying to say? And as a, as an industry that is about communication, it's recognizing that when it doesn't land, it's, it's actually on us to communicate that a bit more.

Adrian Strittmatter: 48:20

Mm-hmm. And, and from an outside perspective, is there anything from other industries that you've seen that you feel could be really useful? If used in a more prevalent way within real estate. I know real estate's super broad with B2B and B2C, but anything that you feel is still kind of missing?

Emma Collings: 48:38

I think it's developing. I think it's changing. I think it's a network that's opening out. Mm-hmm. and that, that piece is once people can gather at their own information, which is the, you know, the tech and digital element, you have to supply more information in a way. And that's true of most B2B businesses of actually you can get a lot of the information. So why not just open the doors and, and let it out to a certain extent. but I look at what I would class as brands and say, who did things differently and could, will that change in like real estate? Who will will somebody jump ahead quite quickly? And I always give the, one of the examples I'll give is nasa, it's effectively an independent agency within the government and we just accept that it's quite brand. You could probably buy a t-shirt if NASA written on it and walk down the road. I wouldn't walk down the road with like, I don't know, department of Education written on my t-shirt.

Adrian Strittmatter: 49:29

was just, yeah. DI was just like, what

Emma Collings: 49:31

yeah. And that's not, that's not a criticism, but it just shows how it's lifted out of a government agency and into part of life. And it's the same, we don't talk about the European Space Agency in the same way we talk about nasa and there's a legacy bit around, you know, what I did. But even legacy businesses can lose that. So I find those types of examples quite interesting, certainly from a B2B, because it only takes one to, to really do things differently.

Adrian Strittmatter: 50:00

And so the final question around that legacy piece or that memorable piece f for you and for, for, for British Land, what, what makes a place truly, truly memorable and in essence, therefore truly valuable to its different audiences?

Emma Collings: 50:17

it's truly memorable. If it serves a purpose for the audience, the audience trying to. Attract and there are moments of, gosh, that's great. So I think if you turn up to Canada Water, that red bridge is a, gosh, that's great moment. If you come to, Regent's place, the, the public realm is wow. Like, this is, you know, and you see it on social because you see people take a photo of it and be happily sharing it. So to a certain extent, those, gosh, I wasn't expecting that is, that's the bit that adds individual value, but that individual value then becomes more valuable'cause people want to spend time there. Mm-hmm. But you're coming back into things being culturally relevant and, and built for people that you mm-hmm. That, that need to spend, that want, need to spend time somewhere.

Adrian Strittmatter: 51:07

And if you were to give a sort of final pitch for the importance of brand and marketing as a value lever, what would it, what would it be

Emma Collings: 51:15

in a world where trust is being questioned all the time. Being in control of your own narrative is hugely important because it means that you are able to communicate effectively and demonstrate what the value is to a number of audiences. You cannot allow that narrative to be taken over by someone else that's interpreting it. And, that's the bit I would say marketing and brand plays a really big role because it's how you show up, for your own business or, or product in, in a room of people that could be having different views on, on

Adrian Strittmatter: 51:48

or assumptions

Emma Collings: 51:48

or assumptions or assumptions on you and those assumptions. P that assumptions piece is, is huge. that unconscious bias is huge and we are just consuming so much information, getting that cut through and, and communicating that is, it's the message, is the design, it's the behavior, it's all of those elements that that form, form marketing.

Adrian Strittmatter: 52:08

Perfect, perfect End piece.

Emma Collings: 52:10

Thank,

Adrian Strittmatter: 52:11

Pitched it. Pitched it for me. That's perfect.

Emma Collings: 52:13

Well, thank you for having me. That was really enjoyable. has that gone really quickly?

Adrian Strittmatter: 52:16

It, it, it has, Thanks ever so

Emma Collings: 52:18

much.