Tall Poppy
Bridging Brand Transitions in Real Estate.
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The Transition Challenge
Tall Poppy, a disruptive Kiwi real estate company, found themselves at a critical juncture. With plans for a complete rebrand by year-end, they faced a strategic dilemma: how to maintain market momentum and customer engagement during this transitional period.
The solution? An intermediate website that would bridge the gap between their current identity and future vision, while continuing to showcase their unique value proposition: Fair Flat Fees and award-winning customer service.
The Design Challenge
The intermediate website presented a complex set of interconnected challenges:
- Creating a solution that honored the existing brand while subtly preparing customers for upcoming changes
- Designing a platform that could effectively showcase properties and generate leads without extensive development resources
- Ensuring seamless integration with multiple third-party platforms (Trade Me, homes.co.nz, Facebook, Google)
- Balancing immediate business needs with strategic long-term brand evolution
- Delivering significant value on a compressed timeline
The fundamental question became: How do you design a transitional digital experience that serves immediate business needs while setting the stage for future transformation?
The Approach
Rather than viewing this as simply a “placeholder” project, I approached the intermediate website as a strategic opportunity to:
- Test New UX Patterns – Introducing subtle navigation and interaction improvements that could inform the eventual rebrand
- Refine Value Proposition Messaging – Experimenting with more impactful ways to communicate Tall Poppy’s market differentiators
- Optimize Conversion Pathways – Enhancing the property discovery and inquiry processes to improve lead generation
- Gather User Insights – Creating analytics frameworks to collect valuable user behavior data to inform the future redesign
The Solution
The resulting intermediate website struck a perfect balance between immediate functionality and strategic evolution:
Streamlined Property Search
I redesigned the property discovery experience to prioritize the criteria most important to Kiwi home buyers, reducing friction and improving engagement metrics.
Value-Focused Messaging
The site prominently featured Tall Poppy’s Fair Flat Fees structure and award-winning service, with testimonials strategically positioned throughout the user journey.
Scalable Design System
Rather than building one-off components, I developed a flexible design system that could evolve with the brand while maintaining consistency across all touchpoints.
The design maintained the essence of Tall Poppy’s existing visual identity while introducing subtle refinements that would ease the transition to their future rebrand.
Impact & Results
While the intermediate website design was well-received by stakeholders, Tall Poppy ultimately made the strategic decision to redirect resources toward their comprehensive rebranding initiative. The company maintained their existing digital presence while accelerating their timeline for the complete brand overhaul.
Though the intermediate website wasn’t fully deployed, the design process delivered significant value by clarifying priorities and refining the vision for Tall Poppy’s digital future. The project served as a valuable strategic exercise that informed their comprehensive rebranding approach.
Key Learnings
This project reinforced several critical principles about effective transitional design:
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Intermediate doesn’t mean incomplete – Even temporary solutions must deliver complete, polished experiences for users
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Strategic transitions create learning opportunities – The solution provided invaluable insights that shaped future strategy
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System thinking trumps page thinking – Designing flexible components and systems proved more valuable than focusing on individual page layouts