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This is just a bad idea
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21 Responses to “This is just a bad idea”
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Darn it! I was just considering positioning myself as an "elite… aficionado of fine living."
Wow. What an example. It is the perfect illustration of what the Sales Manager of the new Pelican Hill Resort (www.PelicanHill.com) said in our office sales meeting last week when he commented that "luxury" is an overused term. I thought it was interesting that Pelican Hill has refused any "star" ratings feeling that they are above that and they tout the "possibility of perfection" (implying the new standard of luxury). I don't think Pelican Hill uses the word "luxury" in any of their marketing. Very interesting. Luxury seems to have evolved for some, and not for others.
That's just the tip of this particular icebergs issue.
… Or dancing around juggling bottles of bubbly. Is this how luxury agents really want to be portrayed?
Ok, not my cup of tea, but maybe this speaks to their audience. Florida is a red state and was carried by the Republicans in three of the last four elections and is expected to vote for McCain in November.
Coincidence? I think not.
The longer I watched the harder I, uhhh…smiled. Apparently Mary is picking up a few dollars on the side as a concierge. Julie's got a nasty hook she's working on and somewhere in the bay there's a Crestliner that's tacking erraticly while Gilligan searches for the wheel. Oh the humanity.
And I am struggling to understand how all of this agent voguing ties into the message of "defining luxury".
Every one of these pictures are bad cliches from where I sit. Perhaps it's generational Marc. Most of these agents are of a fairly specific demo. I wasn't very kind in my previous post but I'm so weary of agents posing for pics in ways that look totally fake. It wrecks their cred and to a degree all of ours.
I would take this a bit further Greg.
First is the first impression that springs forth from the imagery and how it might be interpreted by a user/consumer who might very well be mired in a downward mental spiral as a result of the market. Many have been foreclosed on. Many more are facing that reality. Others have lost huge equity in their home threatening their financial stability. Opportunities are closing along with long established financial institutions. In many ways, the country itself seems to be gripped in a financial nightmare stemming from the antics of real estate.
And yet, here, on this website, agents appear amazingly unaware of these issues, almost smug, cast as frivolously self-absorbed in their personal good fortunes made from real estate. Imagine being one of many clients of agents scoring on the golf course who overpaid for their home and facing a maturing ARM that threatens their personal future. How would you feel?
My concern is how this exudes an utter sense of insensitivity to the realities outside the tunnel vision of the real estate individual.
Second is the mockery this makes of the notion of luxury – a term that tends to be associated with class and levels of sophistication and etiquette.
The message to our readers here is about what happens when you carelessly merge elements or attempt to create a brand image that lies outside the realities of who you really are.
This is not meant to be a negative statement about tacky agents. Agents reserve the right to be tacky, which works well if tacky is consistent with the overall brand. Assist2Sell can get away with being a little tacky. It works inside that brand environment.
Not here.
This brand has instead, attempted to cast themselves as a luxury brand. But even more specifically, they are attempting to "redefine" luxury.
That's bold. When I read that I think of other luxe brands that have attempted to do that and having just returned from Oahu I can attest to the Rodeo drive aura of Waikiki and the score of brands attempting to do just that. Hence, I am flooded with real images of redefined luxury that horribly conflicts with what this website portrays.
My first thought was, this isn't redefining Luxury – it has obliterated everything I ever thought luxury was.
This is the caution here. The blatant use of statements that appear all over real estate attached to campaigns that do little to support the brand or positioning statements.
The end result – confusion, distrust, mockery, and general impression that a brand such as this might be viewed as being completely disconnected from their own sense of who they are.
Building brand is both a science and an art. It cannot be done casually or without taking every single element and placing it under a microscope. And it can't be done, when as a broker, your decisions are driven by impulse and appeasing your agents desire to be cast as characters and personalities without really analyzing how to do it right. This is precisely how this appears given my expertise and background building brands both inside and outside real estate.
This post is not intended to offend the company here but rather use this as an example to help educate our clients and readers in understanding how seriously we take what we do as a firm and how easy it is to go astray when creating a campaign.
I hope that comes across.
Marc
Yes, this plays into just about every bad stereotype of an aloof, self-absorbed and disconnected Realtor. It is just as tired as the 'I'm #1' marketing that I still see in the Sunday Homes section every week.
Bingo. it would be prudent for everyone reading this to go to their website. Go to their own marketing material and do a quick brand check. Ask yourself – who are you? Who is your company? What do you stand for? What impression are you trying to offer the world? And then do the gut check. See if what you have created tightly mimics that position.
If not, you are well on your way to discovering why you are not as successful as you could be.
If you are having a hard time deciding, get help.
Interesting mix of metaphors.
My brain is struggling with orange and luxery being congruent?
Ahhhh – the flash of 1.0. Outstanding!
You just scared the crap out of me with that last suggestion Marc. I have some work to do….
No need to be. Nothing wrong with a little brand wake up call. Especially in this business where the ideas and tenants of branding have been culled through a host of misinformation taught by less then knowledgeable folks and where terms, statements and slogans and ideas seemed to have been removed from a grab bag.
Nike employees 350 people who serve their brand needs and oversee their touch points.
This is one of the things that we specialize in. If anyone needs a 5 minute brand survey, just ping me. I'll be happy to glance at your site and pinpoint the incongruities if there are any.
Marlow comments: ". . . maybe this speaks to their audience. Florida is a red state and was carried by the Republicans in three of the last four elections and is expected to vote for McCain in November."
Sorry Marlow, the connection between the utterly ridiculous photos and general political party affiliation of Florida residents escapes me completely.
Wasn't it like *really* close between the Dems and Repubs in the last couple of Presidential elections? Heck, there are still some saying Gore won Florida. Remember hanging chads?
I don't think it "speaks to their audience". I think it speaks to being completely out of touch with reality, regardless of political party.
Yeah, all the mishegas aside in Bush v. Gore, it's pretty clear that Florida is maybe the ultimate swing state, that's why ethnics like Cuban-Americans and Jewish people are so aggressively courted there by both parties.
As for the detestable web site — puts me in mind of "Colbert Platinum."
Yeah, all the mishegas aside in Bush v. Gore, it's pretty clear that Florida is maybe the ultimate swing state, that's why ethnics like Cuban-Americans and Jewish people are so aggressively courted there by both parties.
As for the detestable web site — puts me in mind of "Colbert Platinum."
Yup. Bad idea alright.
Speaks to the fact that the word "Luxury" is dead. If not already, they just killed it, drove an orange stake right through it's heart…
Like "The Millionaire Next Door" points out, most millionaires blend in with their surroundings and don't look like they have money.
Does the term "world class" strike a chord?
God, I love that blow-up palm tree! Any idea where i can get one? md
check this out – and Why is everything ORANGE all of a sudden??
http://www.livemint.com/2008/09/06000327/Luxury-has-become-a-hollow-ter.html
Here's a possibility why everything is orange… and green.
It all goes back to the late 1970's when the Pinwheel channel was launched on a local cable station (Ohio). Some of those early shows were called Nickel Flicks, Pinwheel, By the Way and America Goes Bananaz.
Anyone remember them?
By 1980, the channel grew regional and a few years later, circa 1983, they went national and changed it's name to Nickelodeon.
The green and orange color that grew synonymous with the station originated from two things: 1)A green slime that was originally featured their show You Can't Do That and 2) The Nickelodeon orange splat logo.
On December 1996 Nickelodeon launched this – http://tinyurl.com/4a7wk8
I suspect that many of those Nick kids who grew up in the late 80's and 90's, went on to become graphic designers involved in the web 2.0 phenomenon. In fact, if you scroll through many of the early Nick sites you will see and array of color palettes (blues, pinks, etc.,) that have become commonplace today.
These colors evoke a sense of fun, youth and lightheartedness that equate to the vibe of Web 2.0. It is however, rarely a color associated with luxury however, there are exceptions. Bvlgari makes a woman's purse in orange currently on display in stores that retails for ($425.00), Prada offers an orange handbag that retails around $1000 and Breitling makes a $2000.00 watch with an stunning orange face.
And of course, Spalding makes a world class game model basketball in a stunning shade of orange.
Michael,
The inflatable Palm Tree available here for $12.99 from this designer merchant. http://tinyurl.com/3wvlec