David Ogilvy, the original fact-based marketer

This is a duplicate post from David Allison’s blog on RENX.ca

In the social media- and online marketing-based consumer economy that we are all working in, a lot of people are prattling on about how important it is to be straightforward and honest and transparent, and how vital it is to tell a great story. This is not a new idea. In the 1950s, David Ogilvy was a proponent of what we at our company call Marketing Journalism. Marketing Journalism is messaging based on facts and news. It’s what works today.

Let’s see what we can learn from the master.

I wrote a book for real estate developers about a year ago called Sell The Truth (download a free copy here www.braunallison.com) and at the time felt very smug about having pointed to this new filter for communications that would become de rigeur for our industry. It doesn’t seem like such a big crazy idea now, as I think most developers have realized that yesterday’s hype-and-jive mode of creating messages is no longer valid. Ogilvy was even more prescient, with his emphasis on using straightforward words to tell people stories that illustrate what makes a product better than the other products you could choose instead.

Here’s a very famous headline by Ogilvy, for Rolls Royce:

At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock.

Notice how simple it is. There’s no pun with double meanings or outrageous hyperbole. It’s a simple statement, that tells you what the ad is about and what the benefit is. And of all the benefits that could have formed the central premise for this headline, this one (luxurious silence) reinforces the brand position of class and refinement.

Now compare headlines I’ve plucked from Canadian residential real estate developments currently in the market:

Enlightened Living.
Live the Life.
Art and Nature in Perfect Harmony.

Please. Can we all stop using these say-nothing lines? These headlines fail to inform, educate or even inspire. And, as Ogilvy points out, 5 times more people read the headline than any other part of an advertisement. Similar stats would be true for blog posts, Facebook entries or Twitter feeds. But the real lesson here isn’t just about headlines. It’s about overall intent.

People who create advertising and marketing for real estate developments need to remember that the headlines, the pictures, the text, and the overall approach that is most effective today, regardless of what medium is selected, is more like journalism. Consumers are looking for credible information to help them make purchase decisions. No matter how cool or sleek or entertaining or kooky a marketing campaign may seem to the agency you hired and your management team, what really matters is truth. And plenty of it.

Your campaigns could share some research findings. Illuminate a little known fact about your product. Tell the reader why it is better, faster, stronger than competitive offerings. Give a real-life testimonial. (Please don’t fake a testimonial. Nothing is worse or more annoying). Whatever story you decide to tell, make sure it really matters to the consumers you are trying to reach. Don’t waste your time, money or credibility being clever. Be smart instead.

We are not all legendary writers like David Ogilvy. But it would be a great idea for anyone trying to survive in this economy to re-visit his seminal book Ogilvy on Advertising (buy it on Amazon here)

One of my favourite quotes from Ogilvy is “I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.” I couldn’t agree more.

UDI breakfast seminar – Marketing in the New Economy

All of us at Braun/Allison are intrigued and excited about what’s going on in the world of real estate development marketing. We’re learning new things every day. Everything has changed so much, and keeps changing so fast, we thought it would be a good idea for our industry peers to get together and talk about this for awhile.

So we’re working with the UDI to bring together a panel of speakers on December 1st (details here) and we’d love for you to come.

• David Allison, Partner, Braun/Allison Inc., will share what we’ve learned about real estate marketing.
• Kirk LaPointe, Managing Editor, The Vancouver Sun, will talk about the future of traditional media.
• Chris Breikss, President, 6S Marketing, will discuss the holy grail of ROI for online marketing and social media.
• Amielle Lake, President and CEO, Tagga Inc., will talk about the next wave: mobile marketing.
• Hanson Lok, Senior Research Manager, Ipsos Reid, will share secrets from his latest research on consumer behaviour.

Please plan to join us, have a pancake (it’s a breakfast seminar!) and let’s see what we can all learn about the way forward. Click here to register now. This seminar will sell out fast.

The Zen of Low-Control Branding

The art and science of branding is undergoing a sea change. We’re moving from a system where your brand is what you tell people it is, to a system where your brand is what people tell you it is. The most intriguing part of this change is that no one really knows what the new system is going to look like. But there are clues.

First, let’s deal with control. Absolute control of your brand is now out of your hands. Even if you aren’t aware of it, your brand is being discussed, praised, slammed or slandered online. In one way, that’s no different from how it used to be. People always talked about your brand; the difference now is that when people talk amongst themselves, millions of of others are listening, ready to jump into the conversation, offer their opinions, and re-post the commentary.

To remain in the game and exercise some control is to participate. You can’t always drive the bus, but you can have a seat near the front. If you try to make everyone else shut up and listen to you, the bus will pull over and you will be kicked off. Then where are you?

The first step, then, is to find the bus. Be aware of what’s being said about you online. Have someone monitor the conversations on Facebook, and in the blogs, chat rooms, and other places where customers are congregating right now. You can lurk there silently, if you like. Or, better, join in the conversation and try to direct people to the information and online assets you have posted that present your point of view.

Don’t have any online assets or information that present your point of view? Oh, dear. Best get on that. And you’d best remember to sell the truth.

Truth as a touchstone has never been more important in the branding game. Every single decision you make – from R&D through to sales and marketing – needs to ring true. If it doesn’t, if you are trying to spin things, or present an angle that is covertly or overtly advantageous to your brand, you will be called out. The crowd loves to expose a charlatan. And even a seemingly small misstep, one that used to go unnoticed, can now cause an enormous flare-up of vitriolic verbiage.

Witness the country-western artist who wrote a song about United Airlines, wherein the musician, peeved about the airline luggage-handlers breaking of his guitar, saw his fortunes peak and the airline’s  crater as his music video went viral on YouTube. Almost six million people have now watched United Breaks Guitars.

And while this is a very public example, it’s not the only case. Every day consumers are ranking and rating your brand online. Woe unto the author who has one or two bad reviews on Amazon. Yelp is another popular rating program for restaurants, shopping, and entertainment that pulls great traffic on Google searches. Google’s new program called SideWiki is the ultimate in water-cooler chatter generators, with the opportunity for anyone to leave comments for others to find on any website – including yours.

It’s a brand new branding day here on Planet Marketing. The days of painstakingly crafting a brand image over time, each strategy and message building on past brand equity and leading to a glorious future as outlined in the brand platform – they’re over. Realizing that is Step One. The real work begins after you push your brand messages out into the world, and the world pushes back.

Kick-starting a stalled project

This is the first post of many that David will be writing for RENX.ca, an online service for developers, real estate professionals and interested consumers, that provides news and commentary about the Canadian built environment.

You’ve spent a lot of money promoting your real estate development project.

You’ve got a fancy name, and a logo, and the logo is splashed all over a fancy brochure and website.You tried direct mail but it doesn’t seem to work anymore. And print ads seem like a huge waste of money for the meager traffic they are creating.

Signs on the road and at the sales centre are helping to build awareness, but after the initial rush of buyers in early 2008, things just ground to a halt. And now even the confirmed buyers are jittery, because they know if you can’t sell the rest of the homes in your project it will mean no project at all.

The bank is breathing down your neck, and your sales team (if you have one left) is threatening to mutiny.

What do you do?

There’s the slash-prices strategy. That causes some activity, but kills any hope of profits for you, and really stirs up the existing owners who paid full price.

There’s the head-in-the-sand approach. Don’t do anything and hope the economic recovery saves you. This can cause banks to get very upset, and the lack of momentum will make current owners jittery and more likely to walk away.

There’s a third way for some projects. It’s about extracting the additional story-value from your project and re-igniting interest with appropriate targeted consumers. Here’s how it works, in three simple but not-so-easy steps.

Step One

First thing you need to do is be brutally honest about your existing marketing materials and media plan.You might need someone from outside the project to give you an objective point of view.

Your sales team will likely have some thoughts that they have been too scared to share. It’s vital you do a reality check here, and know what you have on your hands.

In many cases you’ll find that what you have been using to market your project was perfectly adequate during boom times, when people bought new real estate as an investment, and only cared about resale value as it related to equity gains. Those investor/flipper buyers were easy to sell to. They weren’t that fussy. They probably wouldn’t ever see the inside of the homes they were buying. A slick looking marketing program that used the words: luxury, ultimate, destination, oasis, retreat, privilege, discerning, fortunate and sophisticated in various combinations was all you needed.

Step Two

Next, you must find the stories and the “brand value” that you missed the first time around.

Did you tell all the stories that an owner-occupier would want to hear? Did you discuss and explain the floorplans, and not just show floorplans? Did you think about the neighbourhood, and how cose/far you are from things that will make daily life easier? Did you behave like a journalist on assignment and ferret out all the good juicy news stories about every aspect of the project from a buyers perspective?

If you go to Chapter 3 in my book Sell the Truth, (available for free on the downloads page) you’ll find lists of questions to ask yourself. In truth these lists are just idea starters. But they may get you moving down the right path. During this step your role is to be a wide-eyed kid learning about the project for the first time. Collect everything you learn in one place.

Step Three

You now have a realistic overview of where your existing sales and marketing materials fell short, and a library of new stories and facts that you can add to the communication program to make it more robust. Only thing left at this point is to figure our how to cram all that new information into the existing materials and tools without starting from scratch.

Fixing your website isn’t hard. Get rid of any flash movies on the home page and pack it with facts and figures. Have a blog on your home page that you update every week with new stories. The blog is essential. It allows google search engines to find you more easily and it gives prospects a reason to come back over and over. Think of all the other information you could provide on your website that a buyer wants to know. Links to other competitive projects for example (yes! I said that!), information about traffic, about schools, about sports, about taxes, about sunlight, and immigration, and CMHC figures. The owner/occupier buyer wants to know all this stuff. Be the expert that provides them the information they desire.

Use your new blog as the starting point for a comprehensive social media program. Have the sales team set up with Twitter feeds. Use facebook ads. Do some blog outreach to online communities that share your interests. Don’t be scared of social media. But know the rules of engagement before you dive in. It can get scary, fast, unless you know what you are doing.
Brochures can be fixed up by adding a couple of pages, or printing a presentation folder that the brochure sits in; that allows for new information to be inserted as well.

Ad campaigns can be re-calibrated to point people to your new website. The website is the hub of the campaign. Everything else exists ONLY to drive people there. So don’t include anything in a print ad that isn’t driving people to the web. No maps, no hours of operation, no photos of the sales team. Just facts that will make people want to know more.

The same holds true for your presentation centre. Signage. Direct Mail. In fact, every component of your campaign can be re-tooled to focus on facts and news and what we call “Marketing Journalism.”

Why bother? Because this is the stuff people want to know to feel good about a purchase. Want proof? Download the free case study on the case study page for a project we did called “The Block”

Yes, all this effort will take time and money. But it will give you the best chance of success. And best of all, re-working a stalled campaign is a kind of training program: you will learn how to do things right for these new-market-consumers for when you launch your next project.