Standing Out or Blending In?

A new real estate agent has recently opened in my home state of Tasmania called Buzz Property (buzzproperty.com.au/) Their logo / branding and photos are super-hero-esque with one of their team ripping open his shirt to reveal the Buzz logo underneath.

I had a giggle when I saw the advert, which then made me look up their website, which then made me tweet (@kirstydunphey) about it.

For whatever reason – their branding stood out and caught my eye and made me talk about it. It was the same thing when Fruit Property (www.fruitproperty.com), also in Hobart opened. I like to think we had the same impact with our branding for Elephant Property (www.elephantproperty.com.au/).

These days when you’re thinking up a name and setting your branding for your new business you’ve got a few choices. Using real estate agents as examples (although of course these relate to any industry): you can choose a branding and a name to convey:

* Respectability, stability and that of being an established company (like www.corkhill.com.au established through their branding)

* Innovation, freshness (like: www.fruitproperty.com and our company www.elephantproperty.com.au)

* A real desire to shock and get people talking like Buzz above (it’s important to note though that I’ve encountered some people who really don’t like their branding – but you run that risk when you choose to be this innovative!)

* A known brand like Harcourts, Ray White, McGrath etc whereby you’re leveraging on the reputation that brand or name has already built.

* Your own personal name – but bear in mind the difficulties you may encounter selling that “brand” / business later on.

For me – I like a name and branding that gets me talking – so I’m all for Buzz’s new branding and I wish them every success with their attempt to break into Hobart’s competitive real estate market.

Thanks to Tony McCombs who let us know about this great TED video on the power if BOTH standing out and blending in - a great 3 minute watch:

www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html

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By Kirsty Dunphey with No comments

Weird But Cool Moment

A few years back someone came up to me and asked if I was “Real Estate Kirsty”.

Now to me, “Real Estate Kirsty” sounded like she should have her own action figure and superhero costume, it was quite a bizarre moment really.

But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it because:

• It was spot on for my branding at the time in my local area
• It meant that this person remembered not only my name but what I did
• It was soo much better than “real estate KRISTY”!

So what would your action figure be? Lawyer Simone, Jack of All Trades Jack, Hairdressing Harry?

But more so, are people associating you with what you do. If someone needed a real estate agent, I would have loved for them to have thought of “Real Estate Kirsty” first. What or who do your potential clients think of when they think of your industry?

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By Kirsty Dunphey with 1 comment