Track2Realty: Sentiment in the Indian occupier and investment real estate markets has been hit on account of deteriorating levels of growth in the economy, continuous fall in the rupee value, high retail inflation and subsequent rise in key policy rates, according to the RICS India Commercial Property Survey Q3 2013.
Track2Realty Exclusive: As a brand management professional, I am often asked as to which industry in India needs branding the most. Without any second thoughts, my answer is real estate. Prima facie that may sound very counterintuitive as real estate is after all a big advertising spender.
Track2Realty Exclusive: While the property markets in other parts of the country are busy with festive offers, Coimbatore real estate is showing no signs of gift, freebies and other marketing lucrative schemes. Prima facie it may seem like the festive buying of homes is not a reality in this part of the world, and hence no developer is bothered to lure the home buyers with gold coins, cars, foreign tours or outright discount.
Track2Realty: top eight cities witnessed total estimated residential unit launches of 132,000 units between January to September 2013 which represented an increase of 5% as compared the to the same period for 2012, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield (C&W).
Track2Realty: Thapar Builders have launched their new residential project, Arthah, the first 26-storey residential complex in Vaishali at Ghaziabad. Arthah has been designed by architectural firm, Morphogenesis and it is close to the Vaishali Metro Station.
Track2Realty Exclusive: A Delhi-based brand strategist says property exhibitions are more about BTL (Below the Line) brand positioning. Requesting anonymity, he maintains that footfalls are not necessarily translated into actual buying. Even the sales figure that developers so glorify out of the property fest is, more often than not, accumulative sales figure of the given period.
Track2Realty: Less than 3 million sq.ft of office space entered India’s prime real estate market in the quarter ending September 2013—dropping by more than 75% q-o-q over last quarter’s 10 million sq.ft of fresh office space supply; and by nearly 50% over the same period last year.
Track2Realty Exclusive: A section of developers are not in favour of experimenting with the advertisements as this may have negative effect. According to Diipesh Bhagtani Executive Director, Jaycee Homes, ads have some components which are common and similar in all their creative. This helps us build, recognize and recollect the brand name. This also helps build and reinforce the brand identity.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Welcome to Ansaara Metro Park, a joint venture between Luxora Infrastructure and Aanya Group in one of the non-descript locations of Nagpur. Launched around three years back, it was projected to the media as Asia’s largest ‘Metro Park’. It has now proved to be a mere beating own trumpet for inviting journalists from Mumbai and Delhi.
Track2Realty Exclusive: I won’t blame the marketing or the branding team in such a set-up where the defined role of corporate communication is very clear—advertising specialist is one who can negotiate the best rate with the media or the ad agencies, PR guy is one who can get them in column-centimetre of print and soundbytes of television studio and others are good for their dealing with the vendors to deliver brochure and other marketing kit on time. Any extra grey cell and one is a misfit in the company and liability for the management.