What about brands in the property industry?

Confusion about where brands fit in the property market

Branding is used in a number of different ways in the property market. For example:

• • Corporate brands – Large institutions and organisations promote their reputation as a brand to the capital markets and investors. A key element of brand here is about reputation.
  • Service brands – Those who provide professional services – whether surveyors, architects, engineers or agents – have brands to encourage people to use their services.
  • Bricks and mortar brands – The actual developments (whether houses, shopping centres, office blocks or distribution parks) often have an identity which people then think is the same as a brand

Now the first two (corporate and service brands) are usually managed by the professional marketers within property companies and firms – and they need the entire organisation to understand the “brand promise” and deliver it on a daily basis in every customer/client interaction.

Yet the bricks and mortar brands are within the domain of the agents. Agents are paid to “market” large developments – but do they really understand branding? Surprisingly, marketing (and branding) is not taught to surveyors.

There is also some confusion about the way to develop and promote B2B brands (where you target institutional investors or business tenants in the retail, industrial or office markets) and B2C brands (where you are target consumers – whether shoppers in retail centres or residents buying houses). They often use different models and different approaches.

Building brands

Building a brand requires a management intensive, expensive and long term strategy. Strong brands require a bedrock of rigorous analysis about a business’ mission, market position and values. This requires carefully researched marketing strategies embracing market need and perceptions and integrated marketing communications campaigns which ensure the differentiating message is delivered consistently through design, web sites, PR, physical space and the behaviour of staff.

The increasing importance of the service element of property businesses means we have to help all staff act as appropriate ‘Brand Ambassadors”. Staff must ‘live and breathe’ the brand to deliver the ‘brand promise’ on a daily basis. So we have to embrace training and internal communications in our brand building strategies.

Emotional connections

Research shows that the market does not act rationally with regards to the value of property shares and there is a complex interplay between company specific factors and average sector discount but also some unidentified elements. It begs the question as to what extent does or could brand impact the irrational, sentiment issues?

Organisational buyers are no different to consumers who are influenced by both rational and emotional brand values. The brand insistence model defines five dimensions of brand – the emotional connection, the value delivered, relevant differentiation, awareness and accessibility. Brands represent trust and this is a precondition to loyalty. The view of academics Argenti and Druckenmuller is that reputation is managed reactively whereas brand is a future promise.

Leading property brands

(Note: All this information is in the public domain – having been either presented at conferences or published in articles).