Track2Realty Survey: In this mismatch of segmentation, actual buyers are neglected in holistic branding of the company. However, it is the consumers who play a huge role in determining the credibility of a brand. It is not just the word of mouth publicity, or the lack of it, that is the reason to keep the promise to the customers; rather it also saves money to do crisis management against the negative campaign.
Track2Realty Exclusive: When it comes to the first P, that is Performance, the brand is measured at two levels—product level and experience level. At the product level, it must satisfy the functional and utilitarian characteristic as well as deliver on its practical physical attributes. It must stand up to the expected quality or design excellence ingredients like creativity, exclusivity, craftsmanship, precision, materials, high quality & innovation.
Track2Realty Survey: Is a buyer ready to pay premium for the brand reputation of the developer? Majority of the brand conscious buyers’ say ‘NO’ unless the big brand has offering to match the high price and differentiate the product. In the high-end category, 40 per cent of the buyers are ready to pay a premium.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Brands in general and luxury brands in particular are scaled up on the 8 Ps—Performance, Paucity, Persona, Public Relations, Placement, Personal Touch, Pedigree and Public Figure. Bhawna Modgil tries to scale up the Indian real estate on the given 8 Ps to measure how each of the metrics of branding has been redefined by the developer; not to customise it to the Indian sensibilities but to satisfy their ego, misplaced conviction of brand positioning and assuming sales calls as the branding ROI.
Track2Realty Survey: The question is what shapes public perception as far as brand premium of a real estate company is concerned? User experience and word of mouth publicity is what matters to them and advertising is nothing more than a medium to know about the new launches.
Track2Realty Exclusive: One mistake that the Indian realtors have been doing is to go for a cheap and easy way to establish brand recognition is through technology, especially popular mediums like blogs, Facebook and Twitter, which help them build relationship with their clients.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The opening up of retail in multi-brand and single brand is likely to push up the demand for more space throughout the country. On a rough estimate, this sub-segment needs, over the next few years, close to 20 million sq feet of space, which have to be built in accordance with the international standards.
Track2Realty Exclusive: In one of the classic example, one of the advertising agency recently came out with a creative idea of suggesting the name of the project as 1947. The spacious luxury flat’s advertising was suggested to be played around the concept of freedom—from space crunch, parking mess, traffic snarls etc. with the tag line “when every lips had one word freedom this apartment was conceptualised”. Result: the agency was asked to get out of the hangover of being ‘creative’ or leave.
Track2Realty Survey: 70 per cent of the Indians who have either bought a house or are planning to buy believe brand reputation only amounts to the developers’ past projects. More than that, 78 per cent maintain the track record of timely delivery of the project is the best way to judge the developers’ brand.
Track2Realty: Citing the inordinate delay in obtaining approvals for projects that is stalling growth of the real estate sector and also the economy of the country, Lalit Kumar Jain, Chairman CREDAI and CMD, Kumar Urban development Ltd, urged the Union Government to form a high power realty committee to accelerate big ticket realty projects worth between Rs.200 Cr and Rs.1000 Cr.