Mucking Up an Ad Campaign

Nice Photos, Bad Copy

The Corcoran Group is a local New York City real estate brokerage. They are another example of an industry (real estate) that, like fitness, continues to only measure itself against its competitors instead of the greater business community.

The real estate business is so sleazy that it isn't hard to be the best among them. But this ad campaign is a perfect example of what is wrong with companies run by people who don't understand marketing.

First off, the campaign has so been done before. Barneys New York comes to mind, right down to the B&W photography and the font. So, OK, we can deal with that.

And they are great Tina Barney photos. But look at all that dumb copy. Miles and miles of dumb copy. What a mess. The image should be the message. I bet there were big arguments about this and I clearly the CEO won. But sister, nobody reads all that stuff and you just look insecure.

Anyway, they are looking very elitist which is also not the way they should be going.

They have some issues ahead of them. Barbara Higgins (nee Corcoran) stepped down as figurehead/CEO last October and I suppose this is their relaunch. Except, uh, they still are using her name. I used to think it was bad news to throw away a name that had some heritage, but hell, I think they should have done it. They had an opportunity to rename themselves and position themselves as not a real estate brokerage firm (with all that sleazy baggage) but as a professional services firm. They could have done something no one else is doing but they took the easy route and look so average.

The real estate business is fast changing. I predict that in 10 years companies like Corcoran will be very different and will be gasping for air.

It's funny, Corcoran is widely credited with embracing technology and forcing other brokerages to co-broke, yet now that the consumer has become empowered to use technology to buy and sell on their own and there are upstart online brokerages that charge a lower percentage, they are fighting it tooth and nail.

They are clearly trying to create added value to using a brokerage, it just remains to be seen what that value is.