Joel over at FOREM issued his take this. I read it. I agreed. I wanted to disagree. Because Coldwell Banker has stood out among big real estate brands lately for its excellent website and willingness to break away from convention.
So I toggled between the video and the website. Several times. Didn’t make a difference. Here’s why:
Web 2.0 is not about suspending belief. It’s about truth. It’s about real. And if you want to bend the frame a bit, make sure it’s funny — or human. This campaign doesn’t do it for me on either score.
This campaign forces me to suspend my belief and buy into the Mortimer and Randolph Duke like caricatures riffing about the Web on YouTube – two dead brokers from another era "getting" the whole Web thing while so many of their live agents still don’t. That struck me immediately.
When Banker sidetracks about a staring contest, it’s just not funny to me. It seems uncharacteristic and as insensitive to current real estate realities as the Duke brothers were when they bet a dollar on Billy Ray Valentine’s life. I got the creeps actually especially because I know people in the Coldwell Banker organization and they are neither insensitive, pompous or creepy. This is just not the right image for Coldwell Banker.
I don’t want to be another voice jumping on the pot shot bandwagon and taking pennies out of the idea bucket without throwing some change back in. As someone who has written scripts for ads, here’s a few ideas I would storyboard that could work.
#1
Coldwell and Banker. Their spirit truly lives on as humble guardians of the business they founded. Compassionate, self-effacing angels who choose to remain earthbound and keep an eye on the operation. They tidy the place up after dark. Check the marketing material. Keep the pencils sharp. Peek in on board meetings.
Banker likes hanging in the server room. He’s got HTML for Dummies open. Coldwell hangs in a guest cubicle. At a computer. He’s reading a blog. They might be 100 years old, but the spirit of innovation that founded that company lives on. Both go online together to search. ColdwellBanker.com of course. They love playing with the home value estimator. They not only approve, the results blow their minds. "If only we had things like this back when we were selling real estate, Coldwell says. Banker agrees. "And these too" he says as he flicks CB refrigerator magnets across the room and onto the PC tower in the adjacent cubicle.
#2
A conference room. A transaction is taking place. Coldwell leans in over the buyer as they inspect the contract. The buyer looks up for a second, as if something is there. Banker also leans in. Over the agent. She is young. Dilligent as one could be. But she’s cool. Steady. Confident. The deal closes. Buyers leave. Followed by the agent. she turns and shuts the light. Just before she closes the door to the conference room, she turns back and looks into the room. To where the ghosts are. She can’t see the boys. But she knows they here. And she mouths "thank you". She knows they’re keeping a benevolent eye on her. And the company. And the customer.
Kudos to the CB team for taking a flyer. I think they missed the mark. But the campaign just started. There’s always tomorrow and a new idea.
- Davison
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Hi Marc,
I appreciate your creative interpretation of what the Coldwell Banker ad could be but I absolutely detest the entire campaign.
When I see this campaign and think about how they came up with it the first thing that comes to mind is this:
Coldwell Banker went to their marketing company and said "Look, we want something funny, not something that screams "REAL ESTATE" in flashy letters and doesn't portray the housing market as a golden market (bad) or as a declining market (bad)."
Then came the typical corporate "But it can't be controversial or too funny because we want consumers to know we take their business seriously. Oh, and no picket fences!"
—
So what do we have left now? Two paintings of the CB founders, looking over some generic Coldwell Banker office, conversing about staring competitions and their discovery of the "internet" in 2008. These gentlemen may also have been ventriloquists prior to forming a real estate agency because they don't even have to move their lips to speak with each other. (Gotta save money in these hard times!)
The entire ad campaign is about as funny as you would expect strange voices emitting from two stationary paintings at 1:00 am to be and did nothing but set Coldwell Banker back 10 years (when the ad would have, maybe, been successful).
They didn't do anything ground breaking. They did nothing for their brand heritage. And, their worst offense of all, they didn't explain how they are any different from the dozens (or hundreds) of real estate sites that offer exactly what they offer and then some.
What would I have done? I would have created a fusion of past and present with a commercial that simultaneously shows how Coldwell & Banker worked with buyers back in the day (complete with the aged film/sepia coloring) and how one of their agents work with a modern day buyer. Show how much leg work and computer work they do for every client and glide them through to a smooth transaction finish. At the very end you would see both buyers, hopelessly in love with their new home, receiving the keys from their agent. Then they can do a "Coldwell Banker: Creating new chapters in life since 1906."
Is it perfect? Probably not. But with my ad campaign you would at least know you it's an experienced real estate agency. Throw in a ColdwellBanker.com under the logo and anyone curious will at least visit the site and discover all these features the talking paintings were yammering on about.
By the way, if Coldwell Banker paid millions to start an ad campaign like this one I think I might be in the wrong business!
I agree that this attempt is failed and I question the creative juice behind the concept. But I herald the spirit in which this was done and believe this campaign is the first stage moan of a big machine getting ready to move forward.
I hope that others follow with their scripts ideas here and maybe, someone from the home office might find one they like and commissions it. What a success story it would for the industry as it rallies around it's oldest brand and what a success story this would be for Web 2.0.
Looks like the video was pulled. Probably a violoation of YouTube's terms and conditions. Is the video available anywhere else?
I've seen the series of videos and they detract from the solid reputation CB has built as an innovator. Watching the undynamic duo try to convince consumers that they're web savvy is kind of like watching McRove (http://youtube.com/watch?v=hYZre8kEsuw) sell himself as a rapper. You know its a joke, but that doesn't make it funny. Let's hope its a short lived campaign.