OSB Group
Brief
OSB Group is a leading buy-to-let lender and on a mission to ‘do the right thing.’ In laying out its new ESG strategy, it wasn’t enough just to comply with ESG requirements – instead it wanted to lead. As a business built on a series of acquisitions, little had been done in the Group’s name, instead focusing on the transacting brands, so this was an opportunity to set a new narrative at Group level. Vested was briefed to identify the thought leadership opportunity for the Group and to build a campaign to bring it to market.
Approach
Through interviews with OSB’s leadership team and with mortgage brokers, we realised that the market was ready for OSB Group to take a stance on ESG. Competitors were either getting noisy with traditional omnibus research or launching products to market that were green in label but being challenged on their true impact. Our research with landlords revealed that many were defying the external negative narrative by investing more in creating tenant-centric and sustainable properties—precisely the kind of business model that OSB Group aims to support.
We devised the term Landlord Leaders to characterise the businesses OSB Group admired and wanted to support – the landlords who were driving positive change in their industry. We worked with the internal team to create a fully integrated campaign launch that worked across their channels to reach brokers, landlords and industry.
Having positioned OSB Group as a pioneer and leader within the sector, we extended the campaign to create the Landlord Leaders Community, recruiting leaders from across the sector to come together to drive positive change. We launched with a breakfast roundtable event where we created a manifesto for change and have subsequently run a series of events, tackling the big industry issues around the pillars of Communication, Education and Collaboration.
Result
Today we have more than 100 active industry participants in the community; our content is on page one on Google across numerous terms; our reach and engagement figures are surpassing expectations and we have much more planned for the new year.
Execution
