"Trading Places" with Coldwell and Banker

Joel over at FOREM issued his take this. I read it. I agreed. I wanted to disagree. Because Coldwell Banker has stood out among big real estate brands lately for its excellent website and willingness to break away from convention.

So I toggled between the video and the website. Several times. Didn't make a difference. Here's why:

Web 2.0 is not about suspending belief. It's about truth. It's about real. And if you want to bend the frame a bit, make sure it's funny -- or human. This campaign doesn't do it for me on either score.

This campaign forces me to suspend my belief and buy into the Mortimer and Randolph Duke like caricatures riffing about the Web on YouTube - two dead brokers from another era "getting" the whole Web thing while so many of their live agents still don't. That struck me immediately. 

When Banker sidetracks about a staring contest, it's just not funny to me. It seems uncharacteristic and as insensitive to current real estate realities as the Duke brothers were when they bet a dollar on Billy Ray Valentine's life. I got the creeps actually especially because I know people in the Coldwell Banker organization and they are neither insensitive, pompous or creepy. This is just not the right image for Coldwell Banker.

I don't want to be another voice jumping on the pot shot bandwagon and taking pennies out of the idea bucket without throwing some change back in. As someone who has written scripts for ads, here's a few ideas I would storyboard that could work.

#1 Coldwell and Banker. Their spirit truly lives on as humble guardians of the business they founded. Compassionate, self-effacing angels who choose to remain earthbound and keep an eye on the operation. They tidy the place up after dark. Check the marketing material. Keep the pencils sharp. Peek in on board meetings.

Banker likes hanging in the server room. He's got HTML for Dummies open. Coldwell hangs in a guest cubicle. At a computer. He's reading a blog. They might be 100 years old, but the spirit of innovation that founded that company lives on. Both go online together to search. ColdwellBanker.com of course. They love playing with the home value estimator. They not only approve, the results blow their minds. "If only we had things like this back when we were selling real estate, Coldwell says. Banker agrees. "And these too" he says as he flicks CB refrigerator magnets across the room and onto the PC tower in the adjacent cubicle.

#2

A conference room. A transaction is taking place. Coldwell leans in over the buyer as they inspect the contract. The buyer looks up for a second, as if something is there. Banker also leans in. Over the agent. She is young. Dilligent as one could be. But she's cool. Steady. Confident. The deal closes. Buyers leave. Followed by the agent. she turns and shuts the light. Just before she closes the door to the conference room, she turns back and looks into the room. To where the ghosts are. She can't see the boys. But she knows they here. And she mouths "thank you". She knows they're keeping a benevolent eye on her. And the company. And the customer.

Kudos to the CB team for taking a flyer. I think they missed the mark. But the campaign just started. There's always tomorrow and a new idea.

- Davison

When AdAge starts asking questions, will real estate start listening?

From Advertising Age:

Pay head to what Realtors don't say in their latest pitch

It's one thing for me to constantly harp on the NAR and others for their loose grasp on reality when it comes to advertising, messaging and designing campaigns based on trust and transparency. But when AdAge takes it to task, maybe it's time our industry take the blinders off and grab a second look at what they push out into the marketplace. 

I've never liked the NAR's ethics campaign. It never resonated with me, or maybe anyone for that matter. Honestly, how could it when the spokespeople for ethics are themselves under investigation by the DOJ? But beyond that, can you really sell "ethics" today? Is there a single American who believes anything is ethical because a commercial tells them so? I doubt it. Ethics has been sold down the river in a boat steered by Jeffery Skilling, Dennis Kozlowski, Bernie Ebbers and so many others.

In the words of AdAge:

The campaign, in other words, is a perfect miniature of the inherent conflict of interest Realtors wallow in, like pigs in the sty, all the time. They have no incentive to perform due diligence for buyers. They don't even have incentive to protect their clients, the sellers. Their only interest is in closing the sale. Seven percent of $500,000 is $35,000, no matter who else takes a bath.

I'm not going to go through each paragraph of the article and point out where the writer is off base or over the top in his disdain for the industry. And there's no good reason to anyone to get defensive about his statements. Instead, what we should all focus on is the level of bias the writer possess, which I maintain is shared by many. Far more than I think our industry wants to recognize.

Never is there a more important time than right this second to look at everything you do that is public facing. Check it for bullshit. Check it for hyperbole. Check it for self-aggrandizement. If you blog, talk about this article. Expose it. Write about it. Create a position that removes you from the general stereotype.

If you do not blog, think of ways you reach your constituency, your sphere and help them deal with their issues that right now, they might be dealing with alone. Without you.

NAR could hire the best ad agency on the planet. It won't matter if they can't get the message straight

I'm guessing some of you can.

- Davison

Releasing Real Estate’s pheromones

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.

Real estate has pheromones. It seems it just doesn’t know how to release them.

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 sexy.

Sexy stirs the viewer beyond the impulse buy. It beckons them to evaluate the premise. To evaluate their choices. To think. My project 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?

Getting jiggy with advertising

Last week Diageo revealed their sexy by inking a deal with international brand builder P. Diddy to develop Ciroc, their premium Vodka. Until last week Ciroc was one of many premium brands (Ketel One, Armadale, Grey Goose, Türi, Belvedere, Zyr, Jewel of Russia Classic, etc.) that distinguish themselves by region, ingredients and process. Interesting elements indeed, but not very sexy.

Ciroc is a lesser-known brand than its counterparts, but Diddy believes that can change. He lives in trendy bars and has witnessed how sexy a cocktail can be when held in an ice-cold glass that sweats in the hard grip of slender, polished fingers. Diddy sees the allure of a glass -- its shape and contour as it nears pouty lips that open gently and take in the frosted rim. Slowly. Lovingly. The throat, bronzed, velvet like, pulsating as it savors every droplet.

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 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 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.

Sexy is me getting an email about Apple’s new Leopard operating system, buying it, and having the experience match the promise of the ad. That consummation of promise and experience is love for the brand.

Sexy is my wife and I watching HGTV. The programming bridges our interests. Awakens our imagination. During that time, real estate seems real. We see possibilities and discuss investing. And making home improvements. We watch rooms transform and people dreaming of home ownership at the top of the hour owning a fully decorated one 30 minutes later.

When you’re married for 25 years, that’s very sexy.

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.

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 to endow yourself with sexiness. It’s about ripping off your shirt and revealing the parts of you that serve to attract others.

This is what great advertising is about. It’s what branding is about. And it’s how you create sexy.

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.

Just think, “What would Diddy do?”

An adagio for real estate

Cog - The name given to this two minute film by Honda. This multi-million dollar film inspired by the game Mousetrap features eighty-five cars parts -- tires, wipers, ball bearings, a door -- arranged in a symphony of metal and plastic that culminates in a new Honda Accord.

No special buy now deals.
No lease terms.
No speeding car angles or rugged male drivers conquering the Cote d'Azur.
No mention of MPG or sticker price.
No pitchman screaming at me through the television.

The ad broke all car marketing conventions. But what effects did the ad have on the brand?

According to a brand tracking report by Simpson Carpenter, during 2003, when the ad was released, there was a 29% increase in spontaneous awareness and a 36% increase in Honda as a preferred brand. The number of people ruling out Honda as a brand choice was down almost 49%.

The whole world didn't flip over to Honda.
But the ad made people re-evaluate it.
And view the car and company in a new way.

Real estate should be reevaluated. 

Each element, each action, each piece of the real estate brokerage puzzle is perceived as so many unconnected parts by consumers. I am waiting for the company (I'm talking globally: I recognize many individual practitioners have achieved this) that can compose an elegant story that weaves them all together -- an adagio for real estate.

- Davison

A TV commercial for Davison Real Estate

INTERIOR – LIVING ROOM – DAY

A woman sits down at her home computer. She's 38. The All-American Mom.

Next to Mom, her children sit wide-eyed. Jack is 10. Little Sarah is 6. They watch as:

Mom types a query on the keyboard and punches the enter button.

A beat . . . then she SMILES.

CUT TO:

INTERIOR – COMMAND CENTRAL

DAVISON REAL ESTATE.

A space-age BUNKER. A bustling WAR ROOM.

The real estate NORAD.

Hundreds of technicians. Armed for WEB COMBAT. Dressed in snazzy suits and wearing roller skates.

All at once, an ALARM siren blares!

Strobes spray a spit-fire of light beams.

Monitors flicker.

Commanders launch orders. "We're at DEFCON 1!"

The technicians freeze. Suddenly. Simultaneously. Then they sit at their consoles.

All eyes focus on:

A LARGE MONITOR SCREEN

50 feet high. Runs from floor to ceiling.

The static clears and an image forms.

It's Mom and her two children. She has just CLICKED ON OUR COMPANY WEBSITE.

Hushed tones. "She's searching for homes," one technician says.

"Let's make sure we get her what she needs ASAP," says another

And all that technology we take for granted shows itself.

It is a massive effort by highly skilled people who react immediately when anyone needs it.

REAL ESTATE COMMANDOS.
AT YOUR SERVICE.

Words flash on the screen:

DAVISON REAL ESTATE: WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK.

-- Davison