Creativity in the Service of Sales
How to Distinguish an Investment from the Competition and Make It Memorable?
For years, there has been a surge in construction, one investment chasing another, and clients often get lost in the maze of available offers. While browsing ads posted by sales offices or interacting with a brand in urban spaces, it’s easy for our investment to be overlooked. What draws attention? How can we make ourselves memorable and evoke emotions in buyers, making our investment their desired choice?
Emotions and feelings are not binary values that can be easily compared to competitors or to assess their impact on value or sales efficiency. However, they play a crucial role, especially when a client is comparing more than just the location and square footage of their dream apartment. When several investments meet similar criteria; provide good access to places of interest to the client, allow close contact with nature, and the price per square meter is comparable, what becomes decisive is something incredibly hard to capture in Excel – emotions
Marketing Strategy
Essential to define the strengths and weaknesses of the investment and to determine its character. It’s crucial in the field of communication strategy, so we know what we want to say and to whom, and how to formulate messages to effectively reach the target groups defined for a particular investment. Developing communication assumptions is only a part of the full marketing strategy, which I always recommend, but for today’s topic, it is extremely important. To make the investment appealing to the target groups defined in the business assumptions, we must ensure the consistency of the messages with the expectations these groups formulate.
For example, if an investment targets young families who have or are planning to have children soon, it’s worth focusing the communication around safety and convenience. Each promise should be supported by specific solutions that validate it, which in marketing is achieved through the development of so-called RTB (Reason To Believe). Referring to the earlier example, the promise of safety and convenience can be substantiated by including monitoring in the investment, a certified playground, the use of child-safe paints, pram storage, or spacious elevators. It’s vital to remember that what we highlight in communication must be reflected in the final, real form of the investment.
Everywhere clients come into contact with the brand is communication. Care should be taken not only for slogans but also for visuals, the right choice of form and colors to build a consistent image of the investment in line with client expectations. Above all, the investment should have its unique character and identity.
Original Creative Concept
The next, perhaps most crucial, element that will distinguish the investment from market competition is its underlying creative concept. Broadly speaking, the creative concept is the main motif, message, or idea we want to communicate. It’s the core of the narrative. Importantly, this narrative must be rooted in reality, so investors tempted by the vision presented in the sales brochure don’t collide with the harsh reality where little of what was presented to them was implemented. Let’s avoid causing disappointments, as this kind of emotion lingers in people for a long time
Example of a Creative Concept and its Application in an Ongoing Investment
A good example demonstrating a creative concept and its practical application is the KW51 investment in Krakow. The entire concept revolves around the broadly understood Japanese culture. A building that visually alludes to Japanese atmospheres was designed in accordance with the principles of feng shui. Furthermore, an area for practicing yoga and meditation was located within the investment, and in the visuals, you can see blossoming cherry blossoms, adding a distinctly Japanese character. Although the name focuses on the location (street name + building number), the logo itself directly refers to the Japanese alphabet.
An Attention-Grabbing Investment Name
Developing a suitable name for an investment is quite a challenge. Of course, at this stage of work, we already have a communication strategy and a creative concept, so we know the direction we should be heading, but there are still numerous potential routes leading to an effective name that’s consistent with the character of the place and is memorable. There are many possibilities. Some developers or the agencies working for them focus on ensuring the name is necessarily in English or has at least a foreign-sounding element that simultaneously suggests the type of investment. Additions like “Park”, “Villa”, “City”, or “Residence” are currently not distinctive, although from a functional point of view, their use may be justified (unless, of course, behind the term “residence” there’s a settlement of one hundred, twenty-five square meter studio apartments 🙂 ).
However, if our goal is to stand out above the average, we should opt for decidedly more creative solutions. Of course, there’s no foolproof recipe for the perfect name, and a lot also depends on the experience and creativity of copywriters, but below I present a few naming design options with examples from the real estate market.
Unconventional Architectural Design
One can say everything, but of course, it’s crucial for ideas to be implemented into reality. To maintain consistency between the planned communication and what the clients ultimately receive, it’s essential for the investment project to reflect its assumptions. Some distinguishing features of an investment could be, for instance, a unique building structure, creative and unusual small architecture, or an interesting color palette used in the design. Increasingly, recreational areas or common parts of an investment, such as garages or communication paths, are designed with no less attention and care for detail than other key areas of investment (artistic works on walls, sofas, a small library, board games, or videos in a publicly accessible lobby).
Most often, the agency handling the investment joins the project at a stage where the architectural design is already complete, which significantly limits the possibilities and rather requires adapting to what has already been done. In such a case, the aforementioned elements should be taken care of during the investment design phase.
Credibility
The investment concept can be extremely intriguing; the name can attract attention, and visualizations can show a uniquely beautiful building structure. Let’s promise investors and primarily distinguish ourselves by fulfilling their expectations as broadly as possible, thereby strengthening our credibility. This is as vital and distinguishing a factor as all the previously mentioned elements of conducting an investment.