Real Estate Company Branding - Case Study

Rose & Womble Branding and Advertising Campaign

 

Rose & Womble Realty is a Coastal Virginia-based real estate firm. They have excellent brand recognition and market presence. They touted themselves as ‘Your Local Real Estate Resource’ in Hampton Roads for quite some time and used that theme in their branding and advertising. As the company grew stronger in the market and evolved they invested in some market research and partnered with the Virginian Pilot to conduct a survey. 

The survey asked the public to provide insight as to what creates the desire to work with a specific Realtor and realty firm when looking to buy or sell a home. Survey results proved surprising. 

Being ‘local’ wasn’t a top priority for customers looking to buy or sell a home. Instead they discovered these seven importance factors that stood out among the survey results:

• Honesty
• Ethical
• Communication
• Availability
• Experience in the market
• Knowledgeable (financing, inspections, staging, etc.)
• Research resources 

Rose & Womble came to us after analyzing the survey results and asked us to develop a campaign and brand strategy, along with a new tagline to replace ‘Your Local Real Estate Resource.’ 

This campaign included producing commercials inspired by the new importance factors featuring our proposed new tagline and brand strategy. To tie everything together, we produced mockups of new colors, fonts and graphics as applied to their brand identity, print and online material. 

Brand Refresh

We knew we didn’t want to change their brand too much…cause we all know that brand consistency is key, but a refresh was definitely in order. 

So, we changed their colors from blue and red…to blue and red. 

We kept the dark navy blue as it emits a sophisticated and unwavering presence but we updated the red to PMS Warm Red. This new red better contrasts the dark navy blue and is more aesthetically pleasing.

We also introduced a new typeface to their brand.

Museo Sans Rounded is a modern, readable sans serif type with a softer and friendlier style.

Different weights are used to display the tagline, headers and display fonts, or body copy text.

The new print and web ads we designed for Rose & Womble make a shift towards clean lines, modern layouts, and bright, light-filled photography. They also lean heavily on the Rose & Womble navy (PMS 289 C), using the Warm Red as a cheerful pop of color that guides the eye. 

Tagline 

In developing their new tagline, we researched other real estate firms and the team discussed what is involved in buying or selling a home. What roles do Realtors play in this process? They connect buyers and seller. 

And what about the buyers and sellers? We all agreed on one thing…it can be an emotional process. Whether you’re buying your first home or selling the home your family grew up in to downsize your heart leads the charge. 

After many internal discussions, we had notebooks and white boards filled with sketches, keywords and phrases about buying, selling, Realtors and real estate firms, along with words from the importance factors defined by the survey.

We kept coming back to the words ‘connect’ and ‘heart.’ Those by themselves aren’t much of a tagline. So we played around with other words, but ultimately we thought about what the buying and selling process is all about – and that’s turning a house into a home. 

After this ‘ah-ha!’ moment the new tagline really started to come together.

• Realtors connect buyers and sellers…
• Buyers and sellers put their hearts into these decisions…
• Life is about turning a house into a home…

After our team played around with this concept, we decided on:

By leveraging positive emotions, the Connecting Heart and Home concept complements all of the importance factors. It also refines the underlying message of their former tagline ‘Your Local Real Estate Resource’ since one of the benefits of buying local is that a local business cares more about its customers. 

It can be used in a variety of situations, but there’s no doubt it packs an emotional punch. Connecting Heart & Home can mean everything from “Rose & Womble helps you find your dream home,” to “Our agents are emotionally invested in managing your rental property.” 

Video Campaign

We applied ‘Connecting Heart and Home’ as a guide to the video campaign’s emotional message. We took the importance factors and developed a video series that features one or two in each of the spots designed for broadcast. 

Spot 1, as we call it, was developed as a spec video simply to show our concept. It was such a hit with the Rose & Womble Realty team that it was included as one of the videos to use within the campaign. 

We used a back-and-forth testimonial style shot where the audience sees juxtaposing couples looking for different things in buying a home. This showcases that Rose & Womble serves many demographics and can meet their needs. 

The video opens on each client talking about what home means to them, and closes with each having achieved their dream of the ideal home with the help of Rose & Womble. This brings the video from a starting point of emotional longing to an endpoint of emotional fulfillment.

The other videos in the series follow suit but focus on different importance factors and services provided by Rose & Womble such as resale homes, property management and new construction.

View the videos below:

We paired each of these :30 spots down to :15s by choosing one family’s viewpoint. Once these were approved and produced, the audio was paired down for radio spots. 

These spots can be seen on air on WAVY TV10 and ABC13 and will be rotating throughout the year to keep the messaging new and fresh while keeping the underlying theme consistent. 

Does your brand need a strategy? Of course it does! Strategy is the backbone of marketing -- from the brand voice and personality portrayed across all marketing material to the look and feel of websites and videos, and the tone of your social media posts. If your brand and marketing are a bit lackluster, contact us to help get it back on track to better performance and results!