Following a high decibel and colourful campaign that grabbed eyeballs, Pratik Seal, CMO, Housing.com talks about the thought behind the brand’s ‘Look Up’ communication and how Housing intends to use technology to make the process of finding a home a more positive experience for consumers
By Henna Achhpal
Q] What is the insight and objective of Housing’s new brand campaign?
It’s an inside-out proposition. As a brand, we felt that this category is beset by a lot of negativity, pessimism and scepticism. This is paradoxical, considering that ‘a new home’ is a beautiful experience. The end result is supposed to be full of positivity but the journey towards that end is full of negativity – the toil, people that you interact with, the process of procuring loans – all the steps are full of stress and anxiety. We felt we need to bring in optimism amongst home-seekers through our brand communication, product and facilitation; this is the core proposition of the campaign. Right from the brand positioning, it’s a complete revamp.
The campaign is summed up in two words: Look Up. We have a new futuristic logo that is an upward arrow, directing towards the future; and softer edges that symbolize a nurturing shelter. When a consumer decides to buy, sell, rent or invest; facts, figures, product and logic play an important part. But the real story is an emotional one. Finding a home not just impacts a consumer’s life but also the lives of those around him; this isn’t boring stuff, this is the stuff of life. Housing wants to make its consumer’s journey a memorable, enjoyable and an unforgettable experience. Look up is the essence of our optimistic vision.
Q] For this campaign, you worked with a London-based agency, Moving Brands...
Moving Brands is a global creative company and considered to be among the best independent creative outfits working with the world’s best brands. We worked with them to ideate and develop the new brand identity that reflects Housing’s global vision. We wanted our brand to be country neutral and more of a global brand for the global citizen irrespective of boundary definitions. We wanted a country neutral point of view on the development of the brand in terms of the colours, typography, look and feel, the visual and language universe.
Q] What is the media mix for this campaign?
We identified Digital, Print and OOH as the three key media channels. One of the biggest things we did was a Google Display Network roadblock for the launch. We reached out to practically everyone present online on that day. While we were trying to reach people across the country, our priority plus markets were the top six metros and Pune.
Q] Do you have a system in place that tracks whether searches convert into actual transactions?
Our analytics and product teams work closely on that. I can’t share details, but we keep a careful eye on the user experience. If we find that there’s a barrier in conversion, we try to understand it and work it out. It’s an ongoing process of evolution. Data and insights help us see the consumer’s journey and experience with the product. We can realize and identify the barriers, what they like and what attracts them. We use these insights to enhance the consumer experience and make it far more robust. Hardcore data throws a lot of light on what is the trend. We have a data scientist lab, insights in terms of not just the product, but also in terms of the tertiary product. What kind of demand or supply is generated in which pockets, the hot zones, where the new projects are, the future market, boom spots, etc. We have data not just for us but even for our consumers, which they can utilize for their future investments.
Q] Housing has had several partnerships with real estate players. Can you elaborate on those?
In February, we partnered with Tata Housing and Tata Value Homes as part of the second edition of the Tata National Home Buying Week. Eight Tata properties across Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, and Gurgaon were showcased on Housing.com, with prices ranging from Rs 24.7 lakh to Rs 2.31 crore. In November 2014, we partnered with Tata Value Homes and in five days, exclusively marketed more than half of the inventory and generated over Rs 50 crore of gross merchandise value through Housing’s proprietary Slice View technology which gives home buyers an interactive exploration of new projects. We also partnered with Nirmal Lifestyle for an exclusive online offer for its lifestyle property ‘One Mumbai’.
Q] What about the partnership with Google Now?
We were the first real estate platform to partner with Google Now. With this initiative, Housing.com helps Google Now provide information to users before they explicitly search for it. This integration will send house-hunters notifications of apartments on rent/sale located near the places they spend most of their time through Now cards within the Google app for Android.
Q] How does Housing set itself apart from other players in the category?
Our mission is all about innovation and optimism regarding anything to do with the process of housing. The intent is to provide an end to end housing solution; it’s not just about real estate listings. Right from the moment a consumer decides to search for a house to loan facilitation. We offer a map-based platform with 100% verified listings and real photos. So we don’t have competition as such in the category. We concern ourselves with the user experience. Each house is photographed by our own data collectors who go and personally take photos in a proper template. Every detail is authentic and as a platform, it’s far more interactive. Consumers want information and our intent is to provide everything so that they are not wasting time over the weekend looking at multiple houses. They can find information online and shortlist the properties they wish to visit.
Q] How is the monetary push through investments being channelized?
One of the key factors is that our internal consumers are as important as our end consumers. In a technology product, it’s the people that matter, the people who work with us, the partners who work with us. There’s a lot of work on ramping up the tech and marketing teams. We are also expanding and taking up a new office space.
Q] There is also talk of acquisitions...
We recently acquired Indian Real Estate Forum (IREF) and work has started on that. Through this, we aim to provide helpful content to consumers on our platform. It is the number one real estate forum in the country. Even post acquisition, it is going to be a standalone forum which will be completely brand agnostic and neutral. Be it any real estate player, offline or online, IREF will work as an independent identity. It’s a consumer platform. Apart from this, there will be some more key acquisitions in the future.
ABOUT THE BRAND
Housing started in 2012 as a rental search platform, known for verifying 100% of its listings, and has since launched services across the real estate industry. In addition to the original rent/resale proposition, Housing now offers PG/Hostels, New Projects, Land and Plot Projects, a Home Loans service and a Rental Agreement, among others. Housing has more than 1,500 people working across India and abroad.
CMO FILE
Pratik Seal joined Housing from Star TV, where he was the Channel Business Head for Star Utsav. With over 16 years of experience in Marketing, Brand Building and Business Leadership, his passion lies in creating start-up brands, and furthering challenger brands. His prior assignments have included creating the Micromax brand from scratch and propelling it to the leader board in the global telecom space; and Life OK - the Hindi GEC channel. He has also worked on the Samsung and Vodafone brands. Prior to that, he had stints with Lowe and FCB Ulka.
MARKETING TIP
Marketing is a whole lot of common sense. Apply it and things will work.
FACTS
Creative Agency: Moving Brands
Media Agency: Mindshare
OOH: Milestone Brandcom
PR Agency: Genesis Burson-Marsteller
Digital Agency: Phibious
Feedback: henna@exchange4media.com
