Why Would Anyone Switch?

Apple launched the iPhone 18 Pro this week.

I've got an iPhone 15 Pro Max, or possibly it's a 14. I genuinely need to check, which probably tells you most of what you need to know.

It's more than good enough for everything I do with it. The 18 is faster, the camera's better and the battery lasts longer, and I don't doubt any of that. But put the two side by side and I'm not sure I could tell you which was which. Nothing about it makes me want to switch.

What Apple also launched was the iPhone Duo, their first foldable. It's very expensive and it's genuinely different, and it's the one I'll probably end up buying. Not because my current phone has stopped working. Because it is a different thing.

I've been thinking all week about how much that sounds like an occupier looking at a new scheme.

Why Would Anyone Move?

The occupier you're trying to attract already has a building. It's probably fine. It works, the staff know where it is, and moving is expensive and disruptive in ways that make changing a phone look trivial.

Doing nothing is always an option, and it's usually the comfortable one. All the cost, disruption and risk sit on one side of the decision. Whatever sits on the other side has to be specific enough to be worth it.

A box that's slightly taller, slightly newer and slightly better specified is the iPhone 18. Better in every measurable way, and still not quite a reason to go.

Which is a problem, because most sheds are, at heart, the same. Similar spans, similar eaves, similar yards, similar cladding. That is not a criticism. It's what a well-designed logistics building looks like, and it's why they work.

But it does mean the building itself is rarely what wins the argument.

Take the Logos Off

Here's a test worth trying. Take the hero images from five competing schemes in the same region, cover the logos, and lay them side by side.

Could an occupier tell which was which?

In my experience, usually not. The same camera height. The same corner of the yard. The same late-afternoon sun. The same three HGVs reversing onto the same docks.

I should say straight away that we make a lot of these, and I'm not about to argue against them. Every scheme needs one. A good hero image is the iPhone 18 of property marketing: expected, well made, and the thing the market assumes you'll have.

The problem is not that it exists. It's when it's the only thing. Because whatever every scheme has can't be the thing that makes yours different.

Then the Giraffes Arrived

A few weeks ago I wrote about a lion in a warehouse. Since then I've started seeing giraffes.

Mostly on LinkedIn, added into warehouse interiors with AI, presumably to make an advert stand out. I rather like them. It's exactly the kind of ambition I was arguing for.

But the lion worked for two reasons, and it's worth being honest about both. In the 1990s it was hard to do, so nobody else had one. And it said something about the building: scale, power, presence.

A giraffe now takes about as long as making a coffee. Everyone can have one. Which means it risks becoming the next hero shot. And it has to answer the same question the lion did. What is it saying about your scheme?

Cover the logo again. You'll remember the giraffe. Will you remember whose warehouse it was in?

What's Your Duo?

Every scheme has one or two things that set it apart, and they're rarely the building.

It might be a motorway junction two minutes from the gate. It might be a power supply the scheme down the road can't get for years. It might be a yard deep enough for the trailers an operator actually runs, a bus route that gets shift workers in for six in the morning, or a site that sits comfortably above the flood plain. Usually dull. Almost always the real reason a deal gets done.

And almost never in the imagery, because they're hard to picture. How do you photograph a power supply?

That's where the effort and the invention should go.

Point the Model at It

Every scheme has one or two things that set it apart, and they're rarely the building.

It might be a motorway junction two minutes from the gate. It might be a power supply the scheme down the road can't get for years. It might be a yard deep enough for the trailers an operator actually runs, a bus route that gets shift workers in for six in the morning, or a site that sits comfortably above the flood plain. Often overlooked. Almost always the real reason a deal gets done.

And almost never in the imagery, because they're hard to picture. How do you make a power supply look like a reason to move?

That's where it gets interesting.

Outside the Box

The 3D model built for the hero image can do far more than produce one view, as I wrote a few weeks ago. It can just as easily look beyond the building.

A film that follows a trailer from the slip road to the dock and lets the clock run. An aerial that deliberately puts the substation in frame rather than cropping it out. The gate at shift change, with the bus pulling in. None of these replace the hero image. They sit alongside it and show what it can't.

It does take both sides, though. We can't find a scheme's Duo on our own. The developer and the agents know what makes it different, usually far better than we do. What a visualisation team brings is the lateral thinking: spotting which of those overlooked things could help sell the scheme, and working out how to tease them out.

Better, or Different?

Most schemes will always need their iPhone 18, and it should be a very good one.

But better on its own rarely moves anyone. Different does. Somewhere in most schemes there's a Duo, sitting in a spec sheet or in an agent's head. Whether anyone looking at the marketing could spot it is another matter.

If you know what makes a scheme different and the imagery isn't showing it, that's a conversation I'd enjoy having.

Until next week.

Rich

PS: I'll let you know how I get on with the Duo. Assuming I can justify the price to myself first.