There was an old boy on the Piccadilly line this morning sporting a canvass bag with the very distinctive logos of Lunson Mitchenall, BCSC and Westfield prominently displayed. Made me smile. Without wishing to be rude about the old boy on the tube, I do not think he had ever attended a BCSC Conference (from which this bag almost certainly had come) and he was not exactly the ...um ...sort of person that Lunson Mitchenall, or Westfield, or the BCSC come to that, would really have wanted to be seen toting their logo around.
It reminded me of that old homeless boy in Elephant and Castle who
trundles around with one of the old green CBRE satchels from MIPIM on
his back (I've got a goodly few of these stuffed into cupboards in my
kids' rooms myself). I don't suppose that was what people had in mind
when these big firms forked out huge sums for sponsorship for these
things.
The property industry is very big on logos. We just love a logo. Which is strange, since it is seriously immature when it comes to brands and - far more importantly - brand values. It is all rather odd really. With some notable exceptions of course, mainly in the high-end office sector: the classic being the Chiswick Park "Enjoy Work.com" campaign, which may be a little dated now (and I will never forget when Dev Sec unveiled "Paddington Central" in about 2000, it seriously blew me away!), the industry doesn't put much thought into these things.
I remember this leaving me seriously at a disadvantage when I was studying for my MBA (I couldn't find a decent case study from my industry for love nor money). I guess if the opportunity for repeat business is pretty limited, why would you bother to adopt the mores of the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector? House builders, in particular, tend to be pretty perfunctory in all this; the stark truth being that, after all, there will only ever be one transaction (so take the money and run!).
We are not quite in splendid isolation here. I was reading in some daft mag or other that Marcos Molina, the meat multi-billionaire magnate, is trying to create the "Coca-Cola of meat". He says "In proteins we could say that really there are no brands in the world that are global brands" and his global brand (called "Seara") is now being developed. Make no mistake, he is for real.
But we don't even really have much in the way of national, or even regional, brands in property, let alone global. Susan Freeman wrote a great piece on this a few years back; lamenting that Urban Splash and Manhattan Lofts were just about the only brands we had as a sector. That is, that anyone outside of the business might have heard of.
UKR is giving this a huge amount of thought of course, as our business model is rather dependent on repeat business. Thank goodness for the lovely Malcolm Allan of Place Matters (formerly of Locum/Colliers CRE), a planner and real estate aficionado who is putting some energy and expertise into all of this for us and for others. He can help companies define their brand proposition and help frame proposals for any proposed property development to exemplify that brand proposition, bringing it alive so that the market can see what the offer is and the experience of being there.
He specialises in place/destination brand propositions for any organisation operating in the property industry or the housing market, setting out the vision for the development of the organisation, the product and service offer, the market, how to create your product and deliver your services, the benefits your market will derive, the benefits your investors will derive and, crucially, why you are (positively) different from the competition.
Malcolm is a mate. And he is helping us identify our way forward, doing a seminar for UKR this Thursday and generally being an all round good egg (another example of a protein without a brand, not that I think that it matters at all in this instance). Be under no illusion, the massive dislocation we have seen in the industry means that all things will change. The time for the serious brand in property may well have come.
www.placematters.org
The property industry is very big on logos. We just love a logo. Which is strange, since it is seriously immature when it comes to brands and - far more importantly - brand values. It is all rather odd really. With some notable exceptions of course, mainly in the high-end office sector: the classic being the Chiswick Park "Enjoy Work.com" campaign, which may be a little dated now (and I will never forget when Dev Sec unveiled "Paddington Central" in about 2000, it seriously blew me away!), the industry doesn't put much thought into these things.
I remember this leaving me seriously at a disadvantage when I was studying for my MBA (I couldn't find a decent case study from my industry for love nor money). I guess if the opportunity for repeat business is pretty limited, why would you bother to adopt the mores of the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector? House builders, in particular, tend to be pretty perfunctory in all this; the stark truth being that, after all, there will only ever be one transaction (so take the money and run!).
We are not quite in splendid isolation here. I was reading in some daft mag or other that Marcos Molina, the meat multi-billionaire magnate, is trying to create the "Coca-Cola of meat". He says "In proteins we could say that really there are no brands in the world that are global brands" and his global brand (called "Seara") is now being developed. Make no mistake, he is for real.
But we don't even really have much in the way of national, or even regional, brands in property, let alone global. Susan Freeman wrote a great piece on this a few years back; lamenting that Urban Splash and Manhattan Lofts were just about the only brands we had as a sector. That is, that anyone outside of the business might have heard of.
UKR is giving this a huge amount of thought of course, as our business model is rather dependent on repeat business. Thank goodness for the lovely Malcolm Allan of Place Matters (formerly of Locum/Colliers CRE), a planner and real estate aficionado who is putting some energy and expertise into all of this for us and for others. He can help companies define their brand proposition and help frame proposals for any proposed property development to exemplify that brand proposition, bringing it alive so that the market can see what the offer is and the experience of being there.
He specialises in place/destination brand propositions for any organisation operating in the property industry or the housing market, setting out the vision for the development of the organisation, the product and service offer, the market, how to create your product and deliver your services, the benefits your market will derive, the benefits your investors will derive and, crucially, why you are (positively) different from the competition.
Malcolm is a mate. And he is helping us identify our way forward, doing a seminar for UKR this Thursday and generally being an all round good egg (another example of a protein without a brand, not that I think that it matters at all in this instance). Be under no illusion, the massive dislocation we have seen in the industry means that all things will change. The time for the serious brand in property may well have come.
www.placematters.org
Jackie - Very poignant observations. I am reminded of the situation a few years ago, shortly before Gooch Webster merged with Colliers, with the St Pauls, Bristol, drug dealer who could regularly be found plying his trade under a Gooch Webster branded golf umbrella. Perhaps merging the companies and taking a new brand was the right response.
How often we are guilty of thinking that a nice logo an a catch name is what it takes to make a development a success. We are guilty of what I call Ozmerlotism, where they decide on the name and the label and, having market tested that, they go out to find the grapes to make the wine from.
We shouldn't make the same mistake with our places.