Standing out or blending in?

A new real estate agent has recently opened in my home state of Tasmania called Buzz Property. Their logo/branding and photos are super-hero-esque with one of their team ripping open his shirt to reveal a Buzz logo underneath.

I had a giggle when I saw the advert, which then made me look up their website, which then made me tweet (@kirstydunphey) about it.

For whatever reason – their branding stood out and caught my eye and made me talk about it. It was the same thing when Fruit Property, also in Hobart, opened. I like to think we had the same impact with our branding for Elephant Property.

These days when you’re thinking up a name and setting your branding for your new business you’ve got a few choices. Using real estate agents as examples (although of course, these relate to any industry) you can choose a branding and a name to convey:

• Respectability, stability and that of being an established company like Corkhill and Associates.
• Innovation, freshness (like Fruit Property and our company, Elephant Property).
• A real desire to shock and get people talking, like Buzz (it’s important to note though that I’ve encountered some people who really don’t like their branding – but you run that risk when you choose to be this innovative!)
• A known brand like Harcourts, Ray White, McGrath, etc, whereby you’re leveraging on the reputation that brand or name has already built.
• Your own personal name – but bear in mind the difficulties you may encounter selling that “brand”/business later on.

For me, I like a name and branding that gets me talking – so I’m all for Buzz’s new branding and I wish them every success with their attempt to break into Hobart’s competitive real estate market.

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.