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A real estate director has highlighted the importance of brand uniformity, whereby the smallest of details can either hinder or enhance your image within the industry.
Barry Plant Group director Barry Plant said the bigger the network the more susceptible it can be to brand distortion.
“One of the difficulties when you have got many, many offices using a brand is that it was ok when you had a dozen and you could keep control of it, but when you have that many you have varied suppliers, printers, sign writers, and newspapers for that matter,” he told Residential Property Manager.
“You can end up with just a mismatch; you have to be so careful to be so rigid to keep right on it.
“So we have a policy now with our branding that you cannot re-print our branding without head office approval, even if you just want to do some flyers,” he added.
Mr Plant said that is not to say certain things don’t slip through the cracks.
“It might have been a brochure out in Whoop-Whoop that went out to 200 houses, it still will have the logo on it but it may be the wrong colour blue,” he said.
“You do have to be careful because the value of the intellectual property - which includes the brand - is probably one of the highest values within the grouping of the intellectual property.
“You really need to keep control of it because if you don’t you have got a loose brand that people can abuse."
Mr Plant said his business experienced mismatched branding in the early days.
“We were a smaller company with maybe 20-odd offices and different printers and we would have franchisees who tried to cut corners in terms of printing costs,” he said.
“It is something that with the bigger you get the more you have to keep your eye on it, and we employ someone to do exactly that and approve everything.
“I guess the challenge with branding is keeping uniformity and keeping a quality and standard whereby it is always readily recognised by the buying public.”
Mr Plant will be covering more on this topic, as well as divulging other interesting industry opinions at The Business of Real Estate Conference in September. To see the full programme, click here.
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