Professional Documents
Culture Documents
difference
Writing on real estate,
branding, Heidi Fliess
and Ritualism
©2009 1000watt
www.1000wattconsulting.com
Branding
I first began to understand the lure of branding while playing stickball one Sunday in the concrete park on the corner of
Avenue P and East 4th street in Brooklyn.
Jimmy Klapsis leaned back and threw his best fastball. It never hit the wall behind me. I smacked it back over his head
and out of the park into Ocean Parkway.
That was the last I ever saw of that little pink Spaulding ball.
Over at the store that sold stickballs, the owner tried to sell me a Pensy Pinky. Claimed it was exactly like the Spaulding.
It didn’t feel the same. Or look the same. And while it appeared to bounce as high and as many times before resting
on the floor, it was still different. No matter what the store owner said, I could not image playing stickball with anything
else but a Spaulding.
It didn't register to me then but I was a brand loyalist. As I hit my teens and switched off sports and switched on music,
brands like Vox, Gretsch, and Capitol influenced what amps I bought, guitars I'd play and labels I'd wish I could one day
get signed too. These were not just names of products to me. In ways I can't even describe, they defined who I was.
The art and science of branding fascinates me. I studied its tenets in college and fell in love with the works of some of
the greatest ad writers and brand makers in modern times. Landor, Bernbach, Ogilvy and others. What drew me to
their flame then and now is what happens when a great brand is crafted. All of its inherent complexities, components,
ingredients and people are narrowed down to something so incredibly simple that a mere word is all it takes to conjure
all sorts of powerful effects.
The following articles are some of the many that Brian and I have written over the last two years about this thing we do
inside a business filled with names that so want to be brands. This stuff's for you. Enjoy.
Davison
Let us proclaim the mystery of
brand
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by Brian Boero
At the altar the Monsignor took the censer and waved it above
chalices over which he had performed a whispered consecration.
I was an alter boy. Twelve years old. I took it very seriously. The
dress, the song, the ritual and the symbolic richness of the Catholic
Church filled my young mind with meaning.
Here’s an example:
Yeah, it’s weird when you think about it. But we don’t think about
it. We feel it. And that’s the point: Effective brands actively cultivate
meaning through the artistry of symbolism, ritual and mystery.
B.S.?
This is nebulous stuff and many (including, in less reflective moments,
myself) dismiss discussions of brand development as bullshit. But
I think there is something here that merits continued exploration.
Think about what it would mean if you ran a real estate company
and could answer – instantly and credibly – questions like these:
Can you explain how every point at which human beings encounter
your brand supports that which you could claim as that something
more?
size
By Marc Davison
The benefits this creates for Disney and other successful brands
are indisputable. A well-executed brand owns a sizable piece of
real estate inside a consumer’s mind.
Assign this line of thinking to any real estate company. What makes
Bob’s Realty different from Dave’s Realty? Personally, I couldn’t even
begin to tell you. My guess is most people inside these companies
can’t either.
If you determine you’ve gotten off track, you can get back on.
“Good morning, folks, my name is Brian Marsh and I’m your first
officer on today’s flight out to Aruba [pauses amid chuckles].
How many people on this plane have never flown jetBlue before?
Great, how about you stand up and tell us a little bit about
yourselves? 6
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Seriously, I’m grateful you’re on board with us this morning. We’ve
got some tailwinds, so our flight time out to D.C. will be a quick four
hours and thirty minutes. And all reports indicate a smooth ride.
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Sit back and enjoy the jetBlue experience – and thanks again”
The guy flying the plane could have made me feel a little better
about this, but he chose not too. He remained, as most pilots
remain, a leaden voice coming through the squawk box, distant
and unconcerned.
Brokers, it’s time for you to get out of the cockpit too. Times are
tough. People are hurting. They’re angry, and unsure.
How often do you, your office mangers or your VPs, personally greet
clients in your office? How often do you call buyers to congratulate
them upon closing? Or send them a handwritten note?
Have you lent humor to your interactions with sellers? Or are you
still hoping to still the anxious minds in your market with postcards?
All this buzz about blogs? It’s not about technology: it’s about you, 7
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your voice, and a conversation you need to be having with your
customers.
I know. There are reasons to stay put. You don’t want to edge in
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on agent relationships. You don’t want exposure to criticism. Let
me tell you something: When you speak to your customers with a
human voice you are forgiven for your mistakes. JetBlue botched
hundreds of flights and stranded a hundred and fifty passengers
on the tarmac at JFK for nine hours last winter in an operational
meltdown. People gave them the flack they deserved and went on
loving the company.
Get out there. Hold a town hall meeting. Spend 20k to hire a top
shelf economist or personal finance expert to help your customers
navigate a challenging economy. Give them the data they need,
however ugly it may be.
Get out of the cockpit and face the crowd. It’ll make everyone feel
better.
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The changing face of real
estate advertising
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By Marc Davison
This is now:
Or are they?
If these are the changing of faces of real estate … why is it they look
exactly like the every other face in real estate?
I see a big opportunity for real estate companies that start speaking
with a more authentic voice. I’ve got plenty of ideas. How about
you?
They
If “they” have not gotten it by now, “they” are not going to get it
tomorrow. If your future is, in any way, tied to their past, let go. Each
day, “they” don’t get it, your life spark dims.
Move on.
Find people who get it.
They’re looking for you
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If you run the place and “they” are employed by you, replace them
with those who get it. Or better yet, those who’ve done it.
Them 805-704-1715
Jack does not get the fact that for eons, the customer was the
agent. The differentiators Jack does not see were folded neatly into
brochures, postcards and offered prior to a handshake.
You
Differentiate or Die.
It’s so simple.
And yet some still don’t get it.
Papa John’s Pizza. They entered the pizza industry wading in serious
competition. They could have chosen to compete on pricing and
mired themselves in the muck of Little Caesar’s. They could have
branded around fast delivery and ended up being perceived as a
Dominos clone. They could have gone after variety and ran out of
gas chasing after Pizza Hut’s customers.
We
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“They” who sit in your boardroom, need to differentiate because
“we”, don’t know who “you” really are, what “you” stand for or why
“we” should align ourselves with “you”.
“We” gravitate toward things that look different. Things that sound
different. That smell different. Things with personality. Things that
stand for something. An ideal. A vibe.
“We” have not really witnessed what could happen if a new real
estate brand emerged with something truly different. Sure we’ve
seen models that offer lower commissions or assisted services but
these are not the differentiators “we” care about. Differentiators
need to be important. Transcendental. And fill a resounding void in
the marketplace.
As a result, “you” are busy explaining why “your” hands are tied.
Why this year won’t be better than the last. Why “you” can’t exercise
change. Why today all “your” troubles seem like they’re here to stay.
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Brushing the sands off a brand
By Marc Davison
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I’ve always wanted to be an archaeologist. Ever since I was a
kid. My first discoveries were found beneath the cushions of my
grandparent’s sofa. Candy wrappers, hardened tissues, playing
cards. The occasional utensil was a treat. For a 6 year-old these
things were a real find.
Or are you just recruiting for the sake of growing? Are you just
recruiting for the sake of saturating a marketplace? Are you just
recruiting for the chance to get one deal from anyone with a pulse?
Or are you trying to landscape the marketplace with an experience
that is bankable?
Agents: Have you ever really sat down and wrote out why you’re
attracted to the broker or the brand you’re looking to call home? Or
are you joining a firm just for the split? Or because you get a corner
office? Or so you can have the freedom to do whatever you please?
Or is there a deeper desire based on something intangible but ripe
with meaning?
Starbucks employees start out at less than $10.00 an hour. The work
is hard. The hours are hard. Yet they are drawn there and picked
based on certain virtues. This is what built their brand — passion.
Passion to serve. Passion to push the Starbucks experience. It’s a
passion that begins at the top and extends to the newest recruit.
Everyone in Starbucks knows why they are there. Interview them as
I have. Dig deep and gain an understanding that the foundation of
any great company is a solid culture, experience and brand.
This line, in the middle of a very long and very good post by author
and online media executive John Battelle, leaped out of my feed
reader this morning:
His larger point was that big brand advertisers continue to pay
exorbitant amounts for print and television brand advertising because
these media allow them to affect a consumer in a meaningful way,
to build the brand by connecting with people. Online ads, on the
other hand, even the splashiest display units on big media sites
like Yahoo! or AOL, while dramatically cheaper and seductively
measurable, fail to get inside the consumer’s head. The medium is
not fertile breeding ground for brand love — at least not yet.
So brands like Louis Vuitton and BMW continue to play both sides
of the fence, taking out the big spreads and prime-time spots
while spending dollars online and making a few social plays. They
connect to the heart, the head, and the conversation.
But what’s a real estate brand to do? The efficacy of print ads
were always dubious; Recently they have been largely tactical — a
means to placate sellers or prop up a weak value proposition; now,
with brokerage financials upside down, they are darn near out of
the question. Well executed TV ads have always been beyond the
reach of all but the biggest players in our industry.
So for real estate, the imperative to throw the brand into the tumble
of the conversation that is at the heart of the cluetrain ethos is quite
strong. The real estate brands that will dominate their markets
five years from now will be those that take down the forcefield
of postcards, press releases and pablum standing between their
brand and their marketplace and start connecting meaningfully,
humanely.
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Releasing Real Estate’s
pheromones
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By Marc Davison
Sexy sells.
Physical sexy.
Intellectual sexy.
These days, stimulating the mind and the heart from the
advertisement all the way through to the experience is hot, hot,
hot. It’s what attracts people to products. Loyalty to brands. And
it’s building across the luxury spectrum. Hermes, Prada, Ferarri,
Burberry are booming while other less sexy brands sit unwanted,
like wallflowers at the school dance.
Understanding sexy
In my junior year of college, my advertising class was tasked with
fabricating a company and delivering the creative necessary to
launch it on TV, radio and print (this was pre-Internet). The idea
was to come up with something challenging. Not a Wall Street
investment firm or uptown haberdashery. Our professor wanted us
to stretch our imaginations.
I invented an airline, Flynite Air. It had no seats and flew only redeye,
New York to Florida. Passengers flew like they rode subways.
Holding on to straphangers. For the ad campaign, I took the phallic
imagery of an airplane and explored it internally. Bodies against
bodies to maintain balance. Brandishing cocktails and gyrating
against other hot bodies under the disco inferno as they “stood” for
what they believed in. That was the TV campaign. And “standing”
up for what they believe in (cheap fares) as great men and women
throughout history stood for what they believed in for the print ads.
The project earned me more than a good grade and a job referral to
a Madison Avenue ad agency. My professor told me I understood 17
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sexy.
Sexy stirs the viewer beyond the impulse buy. It beckons them to
evaluate the premise. To evaluate their choices. To think. My project
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created a connection for my professor between imagery and reality.
I used people he admired and combined their actions with my
premise. In his words, “If Moses could stand on the mountain for
40 days to receive 2 tablets, what’s 2 hours standing to save a few
hundred dollars?
Ciroc. To life!
Sexy is a niche not one vodka has filled. P. Diddy will fill it. His
jet-setting, hip-hop mogul lifestyle can be lived, vicariously, by the
millions who will sip Chiroc neat, over, up. That’s hot. As is the
millions in profits Puffy will take if he succeeds.
How does this relate to real estate? Well for starters, like most
vodkas, real estate brands are borderline frigid. But they don’t have
to be. Stripped down, real estate is actually quite hot. Couples
sitting next to each other at night sipping wine searching homes
is sexy. Spying on other homes and their values is sexy. Buying
property is way hot. Come on, where else in life does anyone spend
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a million bucks?
What about technology? Isn’t that sexy? With the advent of Web
2.0 and all the super-cool devices now available, from iPhones to
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tablet computers, I’m wondering why there’s not a brand out there
willing to turn on a little Will Smith, unravel their hair, and get jiggy
wit their advertising.
In love
The difference between sex and sexy is sex ads require no thought.
No pondering. Sexy on the other hand affects the mind. The heart.
It compels. It touches. It grips you so hard that 30 years later you’re
still in love with the brand. Coca-Cola. 1979. When that little kid
offered Mean Joe Greene his Coke, I lost it. And the fact that I
remember that 30 years later is exactly what sexy is all about.
Turn offs
But then we wake up. And the morning breath of the other real
estate wafts over us. The one filled with this. And I wonder how
it’s possible that despite the dozens of incredibly sexy things
this business could market around, despite the overwhelming
opportunity to truly connect, and consummate, we are still getting
nothing but cold showers.
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I’m too sexy for my shirt.
Right Said Fred’s hit song I’m Too Sexy was about self-empowerment
on the catwalk of life. About drawing on your own animal magnetism 805-704-1715
to endow yourself with sexiness. It’s about ripping off your shirt and
revealing the parts of you that serve to attract others.
You have the goods. Start with the truth. Tell it. And be original and
different. Lure the viewer in using the very things you know they are
already attracted to.
Ditch the things you know don’t work. Clichés. Empty promises.
Animals. Vanity.
Heidi Fleiss is an interesting case study for real estate. During a boom
in her industry where competition was fierce, she decided to build
a luxury model and charge the highest prices in the marketplace.
But the reverse occurred during the real estate boom. New entrants
built discount models despite the fact that America was consumed
by a luxury brand mentality.
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Hour for hour, Heidi’s services were vastly more expensive than what
consumers pay for real estate brokerage. Yet no one ever accused
her of “stealing” from the consumer. In the midst of a profession
rife with discounters, Heidi never worried about a deathblow from 805-704-1715
a street pimp.
Seppuku
If a deathblow befalls the traditional real estate pricing model, it will
undoubtedly come at its own hands, the culmination of a decades-
long muddling of the public’s perception of what full service real
estate really means.
Aside from a few stellar exceptions, real estate companies have not
aligned themselves to the consumer. We’re left struggling to make
sense of it all. We hate doing that and that’s why we end up doing
stupid things like buying homes without representation and paying
unqualified agents to sell our most cherished asset. Consumers
want leaders. And they’ve proven over and over that they’ll pay for
it.
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The paths toward Princeton
Traditional pricing will eventually crumble in the absence of perceived
value. Today, consumers can’t spend money fast enough buying 805-704-1715
high-end services & products. Enough bestsellers have made
this clear. It’s the elusive value of real estate services that drives
consumers away. The
Wal-Mart will never put Neiman Marcus out business and Help-U-
Sell will never put Coldwell Banker out of business … as long as the
differences between them all are crystal clear.
A House Divided
By Marc Davison
But that’s over. And the haze of 10 years of real estate’s sex, drugs
and rock and roll has lifted.
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A house divided
Let’s not beat around the bush. There are deep issues festering in
real estate. I’ve addressed some of them: The disconnect between 805-704-1715
the industry and the consumer. The barricades thrown up against
discounters and alternative models. The 100-year war for control.
But brewing deep in the pit, at the bottom of it all, is a “War of the
Roses” between real estate agents and brokers. A house divided.
I’ve been inside the house. I’ve worked closely with brokers. I have
at times worked even closer with the agents. The indignation is
pervasive.
The Cause
l think you should hear the story, though. lt might matter to you.
– Gavin D’Amato, “War of the Roses”
Brokers:
• The day you agreed to cave on splits you might have made
your agents happy financially, but you lost their respect.
Your concessions spoke volumes about your inability
to provide equal value. From that day on they began to
question your existence.
• As technology emerged, you failed to pounce. You
outsourced it to vendors. They stepped in. Rubbed your
agents’ feet and gave them their happy endings.
• Those hunting licenses you awarded through your affiliate
programs were often not awarded to the best or the
brightest. But your agents didn’t know that. And after all
that money they spent on things that didn’t work, well …
they feel you sold them out.
• You’ve recruited anyone with a pulse. Hence you became
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big rather than great. You damaged your brand. And
shortchanged your best agents. You forced them to build
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their own brand. Or leave yours to start their own.
• You lost location where it now matters most: online.
Others — the ones you now buy leads from — are the local
destination of choice. 805-704-1715
Agents:
The Cure
Brokerages are not going away. They will consolidate. Agents are not
going away either. Especially the really good ones. So in everyone’s
best interest here are some ideas for a truer collaboration:
Brokers:
A house aligned
Many of these things above are intertwined, and change will not
occur unless these issues are exposed and placed on the discussion
table.
Ask yourself how young firms like @properties with a born-on date
of 2000 rose to become the number four brokerage in Chicago with
five-year, quadruple-digit revenue growth. The company is but one
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of several incredible examples of what happens when an operation
runs with a house aligned.
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