Brand building has become the latest desire for real estate companies

‘Building India', 'Committed to build a better world', 'Passion at work'.
Creating a new India' and so on electrifying and admirable punch lines are not of IT companies or consumer durables giants etc. In fact they are of real estate companies DLF, Parsvnath, Sobha, EmaarMGF respectively.
The branding efforts have certainly moved beyond the usage of traditional tactics and mediums. The companies are doing almost all types of brand building exercises so as to remain in shape and get the model-like killer looks. Moreover, unlike past now they have corporate campaigns apart from project specific one's and are increasingly and aggressively using the electronic mediums. DLF sponsored several flagship events like DLF Cup, Tri Series and the UAE Cup, Nasscom CEO Meet, and so on. Shalini Vig Wadhwa, GM - Corporate Communications, DLF Ltd told B&E, "Reaching consumers effectively today means going beyond traditional mass media. DLF's marketing and research people spend time with consumers in their homes, offices and shops to see how satisfied they are with their decision of choosing the brand. Our focus on what consumers need has led to constant innovation in our upcoming projects." During the year, DLF came of age as a Global brand. In 2006, DLF Ltd joined the elite Super brand club. Even, the unlisted giant EmaarMGF is stepping up its brand building initiatives. Their most recent association was with the first 20-20 cricket tournament which gave a huge thrust to the brand name.
Besides these, the other razor-sharp brand building initiatives, as a part of companies' branding strategy includes sponsoring of industry-specific events across sectors like retail, financial services and so on. Furthermore, the attention-grabbing fact is, the above mentioned companies are not exceptions, everyone in the real estate prefecture, right from a small to medium to large to XL to XXL players are making concrete efforts to craft their brand image. Purvankara, Eros, Vipul, Omaxe, all and sundry are making authentic and serious efforts to propel their image in the market.
Well, so what are the reasons behind such cumbersome efforts? Apart from the basic expectations, the increasing number of players in the space and the fact that players are now evolving as national region players, brand building is nothing but the need of the hour so as to cut across the competition.
Moreover, now many companies are listed on the bourses thus it's a dispensable kind of exercise which companies basically need to follow so as to maintain a continuous touch with their investors. Moreover, the efforts are aimed for making up for the marginal loss of shine from the sector due to the watchdog. Increasing IPO rush is too adding the inferno amongst those who are unlisted.
Almost all the companies have doubled their branding expenditures. The investments towards the purpose are backed by the growth in the sector and ultimately the sterling performance of all the companies and are heavily enjoying the sail in black. Almost all the companies witnessed a quantum jump in profits (by more than 50 percent). Well, the basic fact remains that with the up-liftment in the socio-economic status of consumers, it has become necessary to brand almost every thing right from the complex things from the IT domain to things as basic as copier paper and real estate is no exception. In times to come we will see players becoming more and more belligerent w.r.t branding initiatives day by day. Kaushik Sengupta, VP Sales & marketing, Eros Group feels, "Brand equity is always capitalised upon the quality of its products. The brand-spend for sure is going to show an upward trend because as we expand and diversify our operations and reach in terms of our projects, we plan to allocate more resources towards branding and reputation management exercises.
The words of wisdom - in future don't be surprised to see real estate brands in the top list comprising of brands from all the sectors. In the view of the fact that branding is a relatively a newer phenomena in case of realty, those who are able to maintain aggressive branding strategies coupled with delivery of the same seems to be the thumb rule.

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