Client Success: Building a Local Brand for a National Real Estate Company

Even for companies that do business across the country, there’s value in reinforcing the personalized service that comes with a local presence.

For one national real estate company, brand recognition wasn’t the problem. But the company’s own internal research found that, while its national marketing team was providing great support for local brokers and agents, the company’s success in certain markets was being held back by the lack of a local advertising strategy.

To address gaps in its ad messaging and better connect with clients in those local markets, the real estate company connected with Cox Media to build a better approach to positioning its brand in local markets.

The Goal

With more than 70 years in the business, our real estate client wanted to reposition its brand through awareness campaigns targeted to local markets. As part of this strategy, the company wanted to align campaign messaging with unique pain points and interests of clients in each respective market.

As part of this initiative, the client wanted digital video ad campaigns to feature local brokers and agents that connected its national brand to familiar, local names and faces. By supplementing this local ad strategy with its ongoing national efforts, the company’s goal was to increase awareness and engagement with ad content, and to cultivate positive brand sentiments within those targeted communities.

The Campaign

One the clients’ goals were established, Cox Media set to work developing a video-centric strategy that utilized both TV commercial and linear video.

As part of the clients’ desire to complement its national brand with local faces and imagery, as well as increase engagement with the ad content, these videos and commercials paired local agents and brokers in conversation with local icons and characters, or alongside characters aligned with the content being advertised around, such as a zombie commercial aired during breaks of The Walking Dead. Other characters included, depending on the local market:

• An Elvis impersonator
• Local personalities and celebrities
• Local musicians, including jazz and guitar players

In each ad, the clients’ local agents and brokers are placed alongside these personalities or characters as they explain the value of the real estate company’s services, as well as the types of services offered to the client.

The Results

Across the company’s local markets, these video-centric strategies achieved the following results:

• More than 168,000 total impressions across all channels
• A 76 percent video completion rate across all digital videos
• Positive feedback from local customers and prospects

Along with tangible performance metrics that prove the ROI of these campaigns, many local agents and brokers have reported anecdotal evidence that their local markets have noticed and enjoyed the commercials, thus improving the national brand’s reputation in those markets. On the heels of this success, the company is now working with Cox Media to produce another series of ads built in the same mold.

Find out how similar local strategies can support your own real estate company—contact us today to learn more.