By: Pranay Vakil, Chairman, Praron Consultancy
Track2Realty Exclusive: A great challenge in real estate branding is the local versus national market. 90 per cent of the realty brands have local presence and not pan India. Most of the projects are linked locally like Prestige with Bangalore or DLF with Gurgaon.
With more of local presence the branding challenges will be different according to the different class of people. Demands will be different for the local brands comparatively.
For example, if a developer offers free two wheeler parking for its projects in Mumbai it does not serve the purpose but the same facility becomes integral part of a developer’s project in Pune.
Most of the amenities become compulsory for the brand offering even if just 3 per cent of the total occupants utilize the given facilities. Another challenge is whether brand can be sold? Actually brands get so associated with the individual personality at times that selling a brand becomes difficult due to correlation. Like Vicky Oberoi can not be disjointed from the brand of Oberoi Realty.
Brand crisis can occur mid way which is yet another threat for a developer. In such scenario communicating straight to the stake holders and customers is the best deal. The secret of managing the crisis management lies in ‘being low profile to the people, but high profile to clients’.
Conveying actual facts and status to the people will lessen the suspicion and mitigate the damage caused to the brand. Sector is witness to instances like Sahara where a very high profile group gave clarification through an advertisement about clarifying the litigation defaming the brand.
Branding is a way to build an important company asset, which is a good reputation. Whether a company has no reputation, or a less than stellar reputation, branding can help change that.
Branding can build an expectation about the company services or products, and can encourage the company to maintain that expectation, or exceed them; bringing better products and services to the market place. Brand know-how in the real estate business will improve the image and serve the business development in the sector.
