Building a winning commercial real estate brand

Written by Posted On Thursday, 17 August 2017 07:52

The commercial real estate market might have recovered well since the 2008 crash, but there is no denying the industry remains tough for many agents. 

Over the past year, banks have put more controls on commercial real estate lending amid uncertainty over property prices, capitalization rates (or return on investment) and vacancy levels. We’ll have to wait and see whether the election of a new president will lead to a relaxation in financial regulations and greater availability of credit – but in the meantime, the sector still has to negotiate challenges like rising interest rates and reduced investment from China.

Even without these global events, real estate companies, particularly commercial agents, have a mountain to climb. Shifts in our lifestyle like the ongoing rise of online shopping is already driving some retailers out of malls, while an increasingly mobile workforce could well lead to the decline of the traditional office model in the coming years.

As with any hyper-competitive industry, success depends on being able to stand out from the crowd. A real estate company might be a specialist in retail, asset management or overseas investment, but so too are countless others operating on a national scale.

It all comes down to communicating values and personality that enable firms to connect and build meaningful relationships with their audience while attracting new customers. Commercial real estate agents often see upping their game as adopting the tactics of their counterparts in the residential sector when instead understanding their own unique offerings and client’s needs is key to closing the deal.

When we worked with our client, Transwestern, a global property specialist to stand out from the crowd, we set out to understand what makes them different, what they stand for and their shared personality traits. We held several workshops and met around 70 people from the business. What stood out was not only their generosity of spirit but that they truly seemed to care for each others’ development and happiness. Their philosophy is that if you care for the success of your people, they will go out of their way to help their clients succeed. We heard many great stories where someone from Transwestern went above and beyond for their clients and then many stories from their clients eager to recommend them.

These insights along with a good understanding of the market led to the idea of creating a campaign featuring warm, sophisticated illustrations of their clients accompanied by the glowing recommendations we’d heard.

We are all used to seeing campaigns and visuals for this sector being dominated by pictures of apartment or office blocks so this approach not only felt genuine but we knew it would help them stand out.

Appearing in business publications like The Wall Street Journal, Real Estate Forum and Real Estate Weekly, the campaign enabled Transwestern to outshine its competitors whose marketing follows a more conventional line. Alongside traditional media, we also designed ads specifically made for digital platforms.

For example, in the Wall Street Journal, the ads we created outperformed similar ones run by other real estate firms when it came to recall, readership and action-taken. This campaign worked because Transwestern knew their audience and market and above all is confident in what the business stands for.

James Trump, executive creative director at Moving Brands.

Moving Brands is a global independent creative business with studios in London, Zurich, San Francisco, and New York. Established in 1998, the company partners with some of the world’s most exciting start-ups and global businesses such as Facebook, BBC and Google. 

The firm creates stories, systems and experiences to captivate its client’s audiences. It excels in sectors undergoing major change, acting as a creative guide to identify and capture opportunities in experience design, business design, branding, communications and content.

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