I was going to call this post ‘Do Quality Marketing Materials Really make a difference?’ It is a question worth discussing. In the US marketplace, there is no such thing as VPA (Vendor Paid Advertising). The sales commissions for Agents are higher (around 4 – 4.6%) and from that, they have to finance all their own marketing.

So, in the United States, Agents ‘doing it themselves’ is common place – assisted by new technology which sees kids in prams texting. Now Americans aren’t exactly what you’d call a camera-shy race. From taking their own photographs to shooting their own video – on an iphone, or a Flip – which you can upload to a site to take care of all the editing and the streaming – all for $29, the US market is flooded with ‘do it yourself’ and ‘host it yourself’ collateral.

Just one example:

Click here to view video. There’s even film-making and script-writing courses at HD Hat. In reviewing these ‘home’ movies, you have to say, they do the job. If you were interested in buying a particular home, I think they certainly show you enough of the property to make a judgement call on whether or not you phone the agent.
Add to this Google Maps and Street View, and buyers do have a vast arrange of free tools at their disposal.

From a Vendor’s perspective, why invest any money in quality marketing materials or even mass media for that matter. Just do it yourself and launch it to YouTube. Which raises another question; if marketing professions are being made redundant by technology, will ‘Agenting’ and negotiating skills follow? But if quality doesn’t really count, why has Google added a High Quality criteria to its searches for video? And why do big Companies spend millions on new creatives if any video describing a product will do?

Guess Jeans goes to awesome lengths, with multi-million dollar campaigns, just to sell a pair of pants yet most home-owners agonize over spending a few thousand to sell a million dollar asset.

The US housing market is a total mess. Making it ‘Cheap and easy’ to not only own a home – but sell one – hasn’t worked. Will Australian Agents ‘Flip’ over doing it themselves?

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HTML5 and the iPad will change the way we consume online media. But what’s it going to take to change how we create it? Over the past 18 months, suppliers have been on a pretty steep learning curve integrating HD video and still photography into one cost effective package.

It is pointless, however, to replicate the same images and deliver the same message in all collateral. Taking a still photograph of a room, and then slowly panning across the same room is just that.

Pointless.

We run the risk of (a) Insulting the audiences attention and (b) Boring them senseless. Cinematography and photography have unique qualities; you can’t shoot a panoramic ‘stitch’ of a city skyline in low light on video without going to awesome lengths in post production.

In the same instance, a still photograph cannot record the sound of a city street. Just like we need different copy for print and online ads, we need to think differently about how we apply this media in the new medium.

Watching somebody use an ipad for the first time is an enlightening experience; it is not just down to the tactile nature of these screens but the very vibrance of the display.

And these screens are only going to get better; Apple calls it Retina. By developing pixels 78 micrometers wide for the iphone4, Apple engineers were able to pack four times the number of pixels into the same screen size. (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/retina-display.html)

With richer more tactile displays, there’s a need for a much richer experience.

I believe the focus now needs to turn to what form this content takes on, and how best Agents and Agencies can use it. In the world outside real estate, every TV ‘ad’ is driven by a Creative; an idea to shoot too. This idea compliments the print campaign. The message is the same. The approach, radically different. Today, we have new companions (tactile, smart, mobile devices). And on the horizon, there’s 3D.

As suppliers, we need to think outside the square and not just dish up the same old, same old stills and pans and dolly moves.

We need to think about creating richer, more immersive experiences. As Clients, Agencies and Agents need to demand we start bringing these creatives to the table. As the hardware changes around us, the creative has to evolve.

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A couple of weeks ago I met with former Miss Australia, Caroline Pemberton and spoke at length with her about the new role she is playing within the real estate industry.

Caroline, who is a TV Presenter, Speaker, Model has recently been doing real estate video presentations for high-end properties within the Sydney market.

Previously within the real estate industry, TV personalities and sports stars have been employed to present and/or promote larger developments/land releases, etc but now there seems to be a growing sector in the market for TV presenters to be featured within the property video of individual properties.

Natalie Lowe from the popular Australian TV Show, Dancing With The Stars has previously been featured doing property videos for a company called Real Estate in Motion and I’m sure that as the price of video becomes more affordable you’ll see lots more TV Personalities, Models and Sports Stars being recruited as presenters for the medium to high-end of the market properties.

But, Caroline Pemberton’s story has ended up a bit differently than she had anticipated. Caroline ended up enjoying presenting the homes so much that she decided to get her certificate and become an agent herself.

Recently back from travelling to Antarctica where she did a video-shoot for the TV Show Getaway, Caroline told me that she uses the same lifestyle format that the TV presenters use within programmes like Getaway, etc to help build the emotion of a home within her property videos. For example, in this video Caroline even jumps into the pool for a swim.

Note. Whilst I agree that building the lifestyle into a property video is extremely important, jumping into the pool, spa, etc isn’t something that I’m advocating agents should start doing as a part of marketing a home.

As more and more agents embrace the use of property videos, it will be very interesting to see what role TV celebrities could end up playing within the real estate industry.

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When Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile he set a whole new mindset for a world of possibilities and now Google has made yet another major announcement that could change the internet world as we know it.

Do you remember dial-up internet & how time consuming it was to sit there waiting for a website to appear on the computer screen or heaven forbid, trying to watch a video?

Well, if you ever had any doubts about the importance that video will play in the world of real estate marketing you may want to sit up and take notice of what Google are about to embark upon. Read the rest of this article »

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Will the recent launch of the Apple iPad mean the end of the Listing Presentation Folder or FlipChart style presentation? Will we see agents showing off their listings via the iPad? Or perhaps they’ll be using it to watch real estate training sessions or live streamed sales meetings? Either way, could it be a Game Changer? Read the rest of this article »

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