AS developers and marketing professionals, we all know that in the business of real-estate development, one of the most prioritized elements from a revenue generation standpoint is the sales force.
Yes, it does fuel all other aspects of your operation, but there’s an equally important element called marketing, and the question that many real-estate companies often ask is, “how important is marketing really?” Can’t we just build an iconic, intelligently designed structure, hire a strong sales force and do away with all these branding nonsense—after all, isn’t the most ideal brand reputation generated by building and selling quality products through excellent service?
The reason strong property brands thrive and flourish despite the many hits that they receive is because they have utilized their craft to create greater value for the land and to serve our country and our countrymen.
A lot of businesses oftentimes overlooked the real value of building a strong, unshakeable reputation in their aggressive pursuit of profit and revenue. Let me tell you this: your reputation, believe it or not, is the most important thing you should promote and protect in the course of your business because it’s the foundation of your being.
Overcoming the commodification through branding
In today’s competition for real-estate dominance, I see a huge number of brands that appear to be obsesses with sales and forget that the most important building block of their success is actually the reputation that they build and nurture.
In essence, branding is the instant communication for real-estate companies. The truth is, the public doesn’t necessarily under-perceive the quality of everything that you do. And this is not common.
How many of you can really tell the difference between an expensive wine and a moderate wine, haute couture or off-the-rack fashion brands, and a luxury sedan and a moderately priced car where it not for branding that instantly communicates value?
A brand instantly communicates volumes about your reputation and the values that you espouse. Your reputation is your responsibility, and you can do something to improve or strengthen everything related to it. Without branding, the consumer is left with their limited understanding to establish the value of what you are and of the properties that you are selling, which means that if you developed in a nonpremium location, for example, you cannot command premium prices.
In fact, the absence of branding invites commodification, meaning you become more like everybody else.
And in a market where you look and appear similar to all your other competitors, you will basically be like rice of sugar because you will be forced to adapt pricing that is the lowest common denominator. In an era of Asean, you cannot afford to be commodified.
What makes an Asean-ready property brand?
Successful brands can survive mistakes and disasters where less successful brands will fall. A perfect example for us to analyze would be pitting the Ayala Land Serendra incident against the heritage disaster of DMCI. Despite the incident, Ayala Land is still considered a premium brand and it seems like nobody can take that fact away from them.
They were able to get back to business the soonest time possible by proactively engaging their stakeholders and constantly being on top of things.
DMCI, on the other hand, seemed to have erected a perfectly normal building that happened to sit in a wrong location. Not only that, they basically committed a mortal sin by going after the issues thrown upon them, instead of conveying strategic messages about their values, which is why they were publicly eviscerated.
What this tells us is this: If you’re a publicly listed real-estate company, you cannot afford not to plan strategically.
You cannot afford to remain passive because your stock prices will plummet faster than you would expect. Worse, consumers will see you as a failure, and you cannot afford to be tagged with that kind of a reputation in the time where Asean brands enter the country and gradually establish equal footing with local players.
You may also ask, “Should I invest in my brand now even if I’m selling fine?” Here’s what you need to remember: the real-estate market is cyclical, so unless you are going to be a real-estate company that only builds when the market is hot, you are going to need to compete for other buyers in terms of leads generation. Companies with weak brands rely entirely in their sales force, while companies that reinforce their identity with strong branding initiatives are more capable of generating a substantial perceptive of leads simply by announcing their projects in various media platforms.
What I always tell my clients is to think about branding the same way you invest in insurance. There’s an initial investment, followed by a series of sustainable investments that, in the long run, create a more formidable future for you and your business. Solid investment in strategic branding efforts can drastically impact the velocity of sales. Your brand is your reputation and a reflection of how you want to be known, so there should be an alignment between your values and the initiatives that you champion.