Rental group Moda’s Instagram page is laced with snaps of swanky rooftop terraces with five-a-side football pitches, glamorous events and a car-sharing pilot with electric Jaguars.
It’s pitched as the next generation of living for its residents who want to ‘Live the Moda Life’, through add-ons like games and cinema rooms, to co-working spaces or experiences through residential events.
“Moda Living neighbourhoods are designed to give you much more than renting with a private landlord,” Lydia Eustace, marketing director at Moda Group, tells Prolific North.
“When I was younger, if I could hear my neighbours key go in the door I would wait so I wouldn’t have to say hi to them. That’s a thing of the past. It’s a lot more community-driven now.
“In the last year, we’ve run 489 events. There’s a huge focus on experience, and part of that is events. If you run regular events within a development that people attend from that community, they’re much more likely to stay there because they’ve made friends with people.”
Operating for 10 years with offices across Harrogate and London, Moda is an integrated investor, developer and operator of large-scale rental neighbourhoods.
There’s a number of brands under the group, including Moda Living, Casa by Moda, Moda Works, Moda Student. From student accommodation to family rentals, Moda recently launched a new website to showcase its diverse range of brands and products available under the Moda Group.
Overseeing the brand identity at Moda, Eustace explains how the group’s new marketing campaign called Moda 2.0 is designed to tap into the 20 to 40-year-old market with words like ‘upgrade’ and ‘enter chat’.
But is this tantalising lifestyle attainable for most renters in the midst of a cost of living crisis?
“We provide different products at different price points and for different lifestyles,” she explains. “The cost of living obviously affects everybody but our different products help service a much wider audience.
“It’s why the elements of Moda Group are important. A city centre build to rent might not be suitable for you. You might be interested in suburban homes with our Casa by Moda brand, which is a much more accessible price point. So it really depends on what you’re kind of looking for.”
A scan of Moda’s available properties list two or three bed apartments priced from £1,225 to £3,400 a month in cities like Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool.
Keen to dispel the belief that Moda’s properties are unaffordable for many, she explains: “we don’t charge deposits, interior designed furnishings are included and we offer the security of tenancies for up to three years”.
With around 88,000 followers and counting across Moda’s social platforms, and 60% of inbound customer enquiries coming from social media or direct traffic, it seems like the appetite is there.
“We know that people want the lifestyle we are showcasing. We are hearing from people who aren’t necessarily looking to move, but on social media they see the lifestyle and amenities we have at Moda.
“There’s a whole host of added extras included in the rent that you don’t need to spend on top. We’re a global leader in Fitwell accreditations, with four in total. Part of our wellbeing offer includes 24/7 gyms, weekly free fitness classes, free subscriptions to the workout app FIIT, wellbeing support, bi-annual free health checks, subsidised virtual mental health sessions, and the support of mental health first aid trained staff in every neighbourhood.
“We’re creating a product that matches really busy lifestyles.”
Although Eustace is unable to share Moda’s revenue figures as it is “commercially sensitive”, she adds: “our developments are all almost fully let across five cities in the UK, with a further two opening at the beginning of next year in Hove and Glasgow”.
“We can talk to people like a consumer brand”
The property sector is typically seen as a male-dominated industry, but women make up around 40% of Moda’s workforce. The group is heavily involved in a number of initiatives such as ‘Pathways to Property’, aimed at encouraging young women and those from underrepresented careers into the property world.
“We would like to think that this being a male-dominated industry is a thing of the past,” she says. “We do quite a bit in the industry to promote the roles available as when people hear the word property, they don’t necessarily understand how diverse those roles can be.”
36-year-old Eustace, who has headed up Moda’s marketing team for the past seven years, first began her career in PR before moving into comms and marketing, working for the likes of Arla Foods and The Parklane Group.
In that seven-year period she’s spent at the helm of the marketing team at Moda, the team has grown to around 10 staff and operates like an “in-house agency” behind the scenes, and the wider group has bloomed from 15 to 170 staff.
Moda has a unique approach to marketing with its mission to become the ”number one consumer rental brand in the UK”. Unlike the “corporate” way estate agents and landlords typically communicate with their tenants, Moda is working on transforming that relationship.
“What we tried to do was say: ‘We can talk to people like a consumer brand. We can use social media in a consumable way’. Everything we’ve been doing over the last seven years, and where we are right now with Moda Group, is how do we drive brand equity back into Moda.”
As social media clearly is a key channel to attract new customers, what does that strategy look like? “As we’ve grown as a business, it’s really changed over the last seven years,” she explains.
Tapping into user-generated content that’s already been filmed by residents has become an “authentic” way to shout about what’s happening at Moda on social media.
“A lot of our organic content is user-generated. We’ve done a lot around working with our residents and using their content – we’ve not asked them to make content.
“We also do geo-targeted campaigns within each location, which 2.0 is currently rolled out across all of our operational neighbourhoods. There is paid spend behind them, to generate enquiries, so it’s a mix of organic and paid for.”
“It’s now time to grow the brand nationally”
But there’s a lot more to what Moda does beyond its developments. The group has a number of global brand partners, such as Peloton, to deliver experiences and even festivals.
“It’s not just about our developments, it’s also about how we open that up to a wider audience so that people – not just our residents – can experience Moda in some way.
“Part of that strategy is placemaking. We have a number of locations in good city centre locations that are going through planning.”
One of its successes so far has been with Canvas Yard in Leeds, one of the city’s biggest event spaces delivered in partnership with creative specialists New Citizens.
“A lot of what we’re doing now is thinking about how we can have a positive impact in the communities we operate in and how we add value to people already there.”
Alongside health and wellbeing, ESG, and customer service, technology is a key theme that runs through “every single part” of the Moda Group.
When tenants move into one of Moda’s ‘neighbourhoods’ they receive a dedicated MyModa resident app where they can message concierge, log repairs or even join forums to speak to other residents within the development.
“We’re always looking for opportunities on how we can develop the app further and use technology to make residents’ lives easier within that development. Yes, we’re looking at AI, and how we can continue to improve our digital platform so it’s as efficient as possible for the future.”
Through a partnership with IoT provider Utopi, the group is using tech to help residents become “more sustainable in their homes”, which ties in with a research doctorate Eustace is currently working on outside of her day job to uncover how communication can help change behaviour.
By working with Utopi, it offers real-time access to monitor data within each building to assess temperature, electricity consumption, humidity and other factors.
“If we know when there’s issues in a building, we can look at how to make it more sustainable. Then, how can I within my doctorate use communication to prove that you can drive down consumption.
“The importance we place in technology to deliver a better resident experience will continue, particularly around how we use the app to engage, build a greater sense of internal community, improve wellbeing, increase sustainability.”
One of the “big things” the group is working towards in future is ramping up marketing activity with plans to continue “growing down south”, alongside the opening of Moda’s first development in London.
“We will be across maybe 12 cities in the next year or so. That’s quite a wide reach so from a marketing perspective, the plan is for more above the line marketing activities, more large-scale events, and increasing brand awareness.
“It’s now time to really grow the brand nationally – that means bigger brand campaigns and more investment in above the line advertising.”
