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Brand evolution: showcasing a legacy real estate company's expertise and future-driven vision 

One of Canada’s most important players in commercial and residential real estate, Canderel owns and operates buildings in all major cities across the country.

Building on its 50-year legacy, this company realized one of the most significant expansions in its history, doubling the workforce, orchestrating a landmark real estate transaction, and increasing its property management portfolio by several million square meters over a few years. 

Canderel entrusted Zerda Digital with reflecting on marketing strategies surrounding its expansion, raising awareness about the company’s roster of services, and underscoring its track record as a 360° real estate industry expert. 

With industry leading expertise across commercial, residential and investment partnerships, Canderel delivers excellence, creative thinking and higher value in all real estate segments.

— canderel.com


"Zerda led Canderel through a complex process of adapting our brand and sub-brands to align with our evolving company vision. They then successfully revamped our website to reflect the new brand architecture while at the same time improving functionality and the overall user experience. We were delighted with the outcome.

Brett Miller

CEO, Canderel

  • Challenges
A chunk of the market still perceives Canderel as a “simple” real estate developer when, in fact, the company’s expertise runs across all main real estate segments — and has done so for several years.
Some companies oversell their achievements. Canderel tends to do the opposite. Canderel’s people pride themselves on doing their jobs exceptionally well, but they only partially capitalize on their work.
As Canderel expanded — at times quickly — brand architecture didn’t follow suit; parallel Canderel entities diluted the brand’s overall impact and share of voice, with the added risk of confusing audiences. Showcasing forward-thinking services or communicating about new acquisitions was also a challenge, with the end result that Canderel was missing out on opportunities to telegraph its reach and expertise.
Canderel rejuvenated its branding a few years earlier — its new visual identity and “invested in” signature created a strong impact at the time. However, some of the branding’s more stylized elements started looking dated. They also worked significantly better on print than on the web.
Canderel’s website was generally appealing. However, its underlying UXUI approach lacked flexibility, making upgrading or scaling the website difficult and offering little room for stakeholders to leverage it as a marketing tool. Canderel’s impressive property portfolio was also MIA. Work sessions highlighted the need to rethink the website and position it as a cornerstone for all marketing initiatives.
Canderel’s “invested in” signature still felt fresh and eminently accurate. However, the website’s information architecture and tier-2 content needed to reflect the company’s increased footprint and gravitas. Moreover, both aspects could be reworked to better convey the company’s expertise and wide-ranging capabilities.
  • Solutions
We conducted interconnected workshops with Canderel's marketing director and CEO. These sessions were structured to delve deep, identifying critical areas and opportunities. We also strategized about the company's purpose
Initial workshops
Initial workshops
We updated the branding and developed a full-scale brand book with bilingual logos for the leading brand and its subbrands, web-optimized guidelines, and application examples for every platform.
Action plan
Action plan
We organized structured work sessions with three legacy business line leaders, the head of a new Canderel service, HR and a key senior leadership person. Building on their experience and insights, we established communication axes and defined marketing arguments for Canderel and its business lines.
Business line workshops
Business line workshops
As we audited marketing material beyond the legacy website, we provided Canderel's core marketing team with straightforward forms to aggregate and synthesize information aimed at updating Canderel's website content — which itself would power future marketing and communication collaterals (ads, social media, newsletters, keynotes, and more).
Centralized database
Centralized database
With workshops that gradually signified the need to rethink brand architecture (b.a.), we realized a SWOT analysis around Canderel's current b.a.
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis
Addressing two challenges with one stroke, we presented Canderel with our recommendation for the 'branded house' brand architecture type and iterated branding options for each Canderel subbrand under a new, overarching Canderel Group identity.
Brand architecture
Brand architecture
We significantly streamlined and updated the branding, developing a full-scale brand book that includes bilingual logos for the leading brand and its subbrands, web-optimized guidelines, and application examples for every platform, from brochures to webpages to ads and pitch decks.
Evolving the brand
Evolving the brand
Working within the confines of the legacy website would have been like fitting a square peg in a round hole: complex, time-consuming, and lukewarm results. The cost-benefit analysis also revealed opportunities for building a more streamlined, easy-to-scale back-end structure and improving hard-coded aspects across the website — all while using the same technology.
Fully revamped website
Fully revamped website
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  • Evoling the brand
  • Website

Our team crafted a new website around Canderel’s new brand architecture and new business line structure, emphasizing UX consistency, ease of navigation, page interconnections, and conversion opportunities.  

By highlighting Canderel’s strengths from their clients’ perspective, we also produced content for English and French versions — including case studies — ensuring the website serves as a go-to hub for future marketing material — also addressing EVP and CSR topics.

  • Design process
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  • Responsiveness
  • UI elements

As we created UI based on new brand guidelines, we also curated images from Canderel’s 1,100+ images, showcasing the company’s portfolio.

  • Impact
Branded house brand architecture, emphasizing Canderel Group as the leading brand, with underlying new Canderel Commercial, Canderel Residential and Canderel Investment subbrands and logos.

Streamlined and modernized branding, focusing on timeless design and facilitating digital applications.

Full-scale brand book, including application examples across platforms.
A web-driven hub with messaging and communication axes to iterate marketing content and collaterals.

Fully revamped bilingual website highlighting brand strengths and client benefits — with a focus on consistency and scalability.
Consistent touchpoints and information architecture for all business lines, fostering end clients’ recognition of Canderel and its services.

Increased awareness of Canderel’s 360° real estate expertise and services within the market, industry, and the company.

More compelling brand and employee value propositions.

Zerda acts as a true partner, they really took the mandate to heart, as if they were working for our company. They listened to us but also challenged us, and in the end, they always delivered on what was agreed. We still collaborate with them for continuous improvements and for new projects.

Patrick Thuot

President, SMS Storetraffic

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