Track2Realty Exclusive: Brand managers of the companies who have been into strategising at the bottom of the pyramid wish it is high time credible bodies initiate measures on this front in the public domain. On the other hand, private equity funds in their due diligence reports (privately) do accord importance to this aspect.
Failing this, they say, it is a thankless job and those who do not need much brainstorming into the top of the pyramid branding of super luxury projects still stand out as glorified peer group.
Devang Varma, Director, Omkar Realtors & Developers believes that catering to a mass demand is a challenge and not a taboo. According to him, while branding at the bottom of the pyramid may take on the unconventional role, the challenge is to create/gain the “Trust” factor. The so-called branding aspect tends to focus more on direct relationship management exercise at all touch points. The branding strategy gets to be more human-centric with the visibility being restricted to specific communes which form the target audience. This could relate to local religious, sports, education, health awareness events.
“For us it was never a taboo as the company managed to earn the market goodwill with its qualitative and timely deliveries. With the city expected to grow vertically, branded or organized developers in any case, would have to tap into redevelopment sphere which has tremendous scope. Developers handling redevelopment projects are coming up with luxury residential offerings as the market holds good potential for this category and Mumbai has hardly any open land parcels. Also, the developers have invested substantial time and money in redevelopment projects whereby free sale portion is the only route to generate profits,” says Varma.
Anshuman Magazine, CMD of CBRE South Asia wonders why it should be a brand taboo when the ROI is actually higher in many cases of redevelopment.
“Redevelopment is the only way forward and internationally also experience suggests that ROI (Return on Investment) could be higher than the new launches due to the locational advantage. And since the values are high, developers tend to take risk. I feel in redevelopment projects values are high, ROI is higher and demand is more, but still in the Indian context Mumbai is the only success story in redevelopment,” observes Magazine.
If the brand taboo has been removed, does it mean branding in this segment is as process driven as in any other segment of realty business? Experts believe since addressing to a few people is much easier than addressing to the masses which make the bottom of the pyramid, the dynamics of brand communication also changes.
The branding methodology in this segment is largely conventional but extremely strategic in nature. Though every company has devised its own innovative technique, some of the branding methodologies that has worked at the bottom of pyramid are a mix of advertising, OOH, Radio, product literature, aggressive PR, digital media, events, direct marketing…..it may sound like an endless list but then challenge is always higher at the lower end of project portfolio in the business of real estate.
