Mattamy Homes Canada has selected ad agency and technology company The Turn Lab to establish a dedicated agency team to help it lead increasingly digitized and integrated marketing efforts.

The team – which is being referred to as an “outsourced in-house agency” – will work out of  The Turn Lab’s office in Toronto, working on creative, strategy, research and social for the home builder. The Turn Lab conducted workshops with Mattamy’s five Canadian divisions to ensure its dedicated team had the right people, processes and product to serve its new client’s needs.

The assignment was awarded following a six-month audit of Mattamy’s marketing and advertising practices. The Turn Lab’s new assignment replaces No Fixed Address, which Mattamy previously selected as AOR in 2017, becoming a foundational client for the then-newly launched agency.

One of the advantages Mattamy saw in this kind of model was giving its marketing team access to the agency’s higher-level strategic thinkers and research when it comes to creative, consumers insights, media, technology and product innovation.

But the other main advantage, according to Mattamy Homes Canada’s VP of marketing Sepideh Morshedizadeh, was getting “more staff hours for less cost.” Instead of a cost-per-hour blended rate, The Turn Lab will manage the team with a cost-plus formula, tied directly to the talent and experience level Mattamy needs to utilize.

“We’re paying for full bodies as opposed to hours of people’s time,” says Morshedizadeh. “In this model, you’re paying for the very specific people that work on your team. If we have a need for a whole bunch of junior people, that’s what we’ll pay for. If we have a need for more senior people on the team, we’ll get those people and we don’t have to worry about limiting the hours because we only have so much time with them.”

Mattamy’s broader marketing priority is to become more digital and integrate more technology into its processes. More specifically, Mattamy is looking to get a better 360-degree understanding of its customers, given that the homebuilding experience and relationship is a long one – from looking at homes, to purchasing, moving in and living through the warranty period. And many times, Mattamy will retain repeat buyers as they look to upgrade.

“That’s where a lot of advancements in technology can help us make sure that we’re integrating all of our systems internally – whether it’s our website, CRM or warranty management system,” Morshedizadeh says. “[This model] is really about being able to marry some of the research that we do with our customers, bringing that into implementation for when we’re actually marketing a community, to once they’ve moved in, all of that backend information we have [provides that 360-degree view].”