Jones Lang LaSalle launch a new look website

Jones Lang LaSalle has a brand new look to their website - what might be called by the cognoscenti, Web 2.0 in style. Having recently launched their jlltv.ie they are certainly one of the busiest property companies in Ireland in terms of marketing and profile raising. The animation sequence at the start, featuring bird's eye views of famous cityscapes, does not include Dublin - reflecting the fact that this is a localised version of the worldwide .com site.

It certainly looks fresh and up to date, but I'd wonder is it really the kind of style that a commercial property company needs for selling themselves.

Profile Park promotion

In conjunction with Newstalk, Profile Properties is running a promotion at the moment in which you, 3 colleagues, plus partners, could take off to London in your own private jet to watch Leinster take on the Wasps in the Heineken Cup. Stay in an exclusive London hotel and enjoy dinner for 8 at one of the city's renowned restaurants!

For your chance to qualify Play Profile Park's online rugby challenge, visit www.profilepark.com

Tune into Newstalk 106-108 fm throughout the competition to find out if you're one of four finalist teams. Ger and Claire will host the final showdown live on The Breakfast Show August 15th.

Another wedding invite?

My heart skipped a beat on Monday when I was picking up the mail and noticed the rough artisan-style cream coloured envelope that can only mean one thing - another wedding invitation.

To my interest (and relief), the envelope actually contained an elaborate invitation to attend the opening of Chesterfield at Cross Avenue - a new development from Avenue Homes, a subsidiary of The Naus Group, with HTMOR as the selling agent.

The invitation has a lone, real leaf affixed on the cover - one suspects from the gardens of Chesterfield themselves. It invites me to come and experience "life in the gardens of Chesterfield"- not to a mere new homes launch but a "garden party event".

With the location in Blackrock it's reasonable to expect an element of style to the campaign, but this is another example of just how far developers and their agents are prepared to go to get the attention of the house buying public. When business is slow, marketing needs to work twice as hard, as is evidenced also by the Chesterfield website which is currently putting the following proposal: "You know what you want from Blackrock living, so why not tell us?"

Newlyn's new approach to area information

Newlyn's brochures and marketing are always something of a departure, but the Tyrrells Brook brochure is very dramatically so in that it is not just an elaborate design feature that makes it stand out, but fundamental content.

All property brochures have sections about the local area and the amenities that might attract buyers to it, but they are usually quite stale, sometimes even just lists of shops, gyms etc.

For their Tyrrells Brook brochure, Newlyn approached a number of local people and with their permission photographed them in their place of work or at home and spoke to them about their thoughts on living and/or working in Edenderry.

The first six spreads of the brochure (after the opening landscape photograph) are given over to the portraits and words of the local people - including a teacher, a publican, a rugby player. The quality of the presentation is top-notch.

The effect is to give you a great sense of the place and a much more realistic one, not quite warts and all, but as close to it as a piece of marketing is ever going to go. It has the feel of the Seasame Street song, "People in Your Neighbourhood", and almost makes you look forward to meeting them when you're next walking down the street.

Why did nobody think of taking this approach before?

Design Factory designed. Penhire wrote. Ken Walsh took the photographs.

Daphne L Kaye's new website

Noticed Daphne L. Kaye's new website design. Even though it's only a version of many Web 2.0-type designs, not only is it a big improvement on their previous site, it is now among the best looking agent websites out there: the Web 2.0 templates are clean and professional and welcoming, so they work. Well done to Daphne L. Kaye and to Willows Consulting. Cleverly, the default url is now www.foxrockproperty.com now too.

"Call our agency!"

This development in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan - Lough na Glack - is clearly after a Dublin market, advertising on the back of the 16 bus here, and emphasising that is only 45 minutes from Dublin airport (it doesn't say at what time of day that is). But what's most interesting about the marketing is the down-playing of the agent: no mention on the bus poster, and only the slightest indication on the website at the foot of the page that it is Property Partners Gartlan that you are calling when you enquire - no logo. Has the agency been too prominent in the marketing of new homes developments in Ireland over the past decade or so? Will the tighter market bring about a shift back to the developer in that respect?

Chapped lips?

Drop in to Savills reception area on Molesworth Street and pick up on of these ...



It won't act as a balm to your property worries, but as a marketing gimmick, I quite like it. It's better than crummy calendars; and it's more "out there" than say key chains and pens. What's next, a tube of branded aspirin or antacids? Or would that imply too much that there were serious problems in the property market?

Throwing the first stone in a glass house

One of the Around the Block market comments in the Irish Times property supplement today discusses a piece of marketing from Owenass for a development in Portlaoise: a 20-page magazine devoted to the Esker Hills development, that the writer reckons is a first in terms of marketing developments in Ireland.

It's the comment that 'The magazine includes "articles" about the residential market' that I find interesting. Articles being put in inverted commas suggests that (of course) they are not the same as "articles" in newspapers such as the Irish Times, that is, articles with a capital A, you might say. Inverted commas used like this are usually about highlighting something unreliable in the use of the word in the context: here, that the articles cannot be taken as "independent".

The example given by Around the Block is that the magazine articles about the market PREDICTABLY suggest that "it's a buyers' market don't ya know". The tone achieved by the 'don't ya know' is the belittling device.

I have one question to put, rhetorically, on this matter: How many "articles" have you read in the Irish Times property supplement that mention negative things about the houses they are describing (and which happen also to be "advertised" in the very same supplement, don't ya know)?

Property Partners website

Relieved to see Property Partners have freshened up their website: the old one was becoming extremely painful to look at. Unfortunately, there's a bit of the "missed opportunity" about this as many aspects of the new site are just the old ones touched up cosmetically. The navigation area is still very unpolished-looking, and the placement of the black-background treatment of the logo on blue is really not very pleasant to behold. (It even includes the web address, when you're already there! Like finding a location map on the door of an office you're visiting!)

The supplier responsible, Strata 3, claim the following on their website:
29-02-2008

Property Partners Goes Live

Strata3 have launched a comprehensive portal for Property Partners. The system designed & developed by Strata3, features residential and commercial property sales & lettings for agents throughout the country. The site in effect links 50 property companies through a single web system.

Yet, really much of that architecture seems to me to be what was there already and all they have done is tweak the graphic overlay. Pity. Maybe it was one of Colliers Jackson-Stops terms for agreeing to a commercial property alliance.

Launch night at 119 Howth Road?

For a little over two months, WSM have been advertising their enigma at 119 Howth Road.

Following the introduction to the theme and a brief good tidings message over Christmas the banner has read:

'Looks like we're ready Patrick'

'Excellent Mr. W'

'Be prepared for a night of activity'

'Do we have a date Mr. W?'

'February 5^th! And all will be revealed!!!'

So, tonight all will be revaled. I know what's going to happen at 119 Howth Road because I've looked at the planning records. My guess is that tonight will be the launch night for the development, but who are Patrick and Mr. W?

Whatever happens, I'm eager to see if they can deliver on the suggestive marketing campaign.

"Customer for life" with Sherry FitzGerald

As part of my house-hunting saga I was invited to a Sherry FitzGerald talk in Clontarf Castle the other night. We were given a brief overview about the Irish economy and the past, present and future of the property market by Marian Finnegan, followed up by a bit of a sales pitch from Sherry FitzGerald Mortgages.

The overriding message that came through was that Sherry FitzGerald is a seriously professional organisation. Looking and listening to their well-turned out employees, one is given the impression that no matter which Sherry FitzGerald agent you’re dealing with, you’ll get the same straight talk, the same grounded opinions, and the same honest answers. Of course, this is exactly what buyers are hoping for in the agent they’re buying from.

The talk offered one everything one needed to know about the property market in 20 minutes. At the end the room was still hushed; everyone was waiting for an answer to the big question: are prices going to drop much more?

Being the cynic that I am, I expected a closing message about how now was a great time to buy but refreshingly it never came. Instead we were informed that 10 years ago was a great time to buy and in 10 years time, 2008 will have been a great time to buy, but as regards this year compared to next - it’s all down to consumer sentiment and that, we were told, is down to us. (Sorry, Marian but that’s far too much responsibility!)

And that was it; either a small increase or a small decrease and no-one knows which. You could sense the disappointment in those who thought that she would provide a definite answer or tell them that a 20% drop was on the way. But I think that a lot of people were satisfied with having been given an informative clear rundown on the market (along with a free pen and key-ring).

Putting myself in the shoes of a fresh-faced first-time buyer who has little background information or understanding of the property market, I would have been very impressed with the evening and would have left confidant that Sherry FitzGerald are good people to do business with.

And that’s the real sell. Though many of these people will be considering all homes, and therefore dealing with whichever agent happens to be selling their home of choice, I’m pretty sure who they’ll go when they become vendors.
It’s all about the "customer for life" approach.

"The Irish Economy Needs Lennox Estates..."

Some marketing claims go just a wee bit too far.

In a full page ad in the Sunday Times last weekend (January 13), Gordon & his team from Lennox Estates, looking slightly awkward, are pictured in a field on the shoreline, with their backs to the sea, and their shadows cast across themselves on the grass. It's a forced image - causing one to be distracted by the process behind the picture instead of the team message: you find yourself picturing the lot of them leaving the office in convoy (or did they arrange a bus?) and parking with difficulty on the side of the road and gathering around in the field uncertainly until the photographer arranged and rearranged them into some kind of order, and the nervous joking about who would stand where and whether the ladies should cross their hands in front of themselves and the men should button or unbotton jackets and so on.

Anyway, it's really the claim of the headline that's most problematic: that the Irish economy need Lennox Estates. Clearly it's not meant literally (- it is explained below that it is the level of professional service that Lennox Estates offers that the Irish economy needs; and one would think it needs a lot more besides before it needs that), but it goes too far and makes the whole ad collapse in on itself for not being able to take it seriously.

Young professionals should not be the only targets of new homes marketing

In a document about the development of spaces for playing, the DDDA observes:

A survey of marketing literature and advertising for developments
in Docklands, reveals images that are all aimed at young
professional people. There are no images of children, or indeed
older people. The message in marketing brochures is at odds with
the aim of creating a family-friendly quarter of the city. This may
lead to people having different expectations of the use of public
and semi-public spaces, and may discourage families.

By not creating family- or child-friendly spaces in Docklands, it will
become difficult to cultivate a permanent population, rather than a
transient one with revolving tenancies of people without children,
and to discourage young families from moving to other areas.
The inclusion in marketing literature of images of a broader range
of people using inclusive spaces will help communicate the aims
of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, and shape the
expectations of residents moving in to new developments.

Innovative marketing

A more competitive property sector has developers and estate agents seeking the added appeal that innovative marketing practices can offer.

The WSM partnership have just begun a unique campaign, a slow drip-feeding of a theme and concept to promote their new development at 119 Howth Road.

Currently appearing on their website and on a large-scale illuminated hoarding at the site itself, the advertising displays a cryptic and highly suggestive dialogue. We have yet to ascertain what the dialogue refers to but have been assured that updates will appear throughout the campaign.

New website for JP&M Doyle

It wasn't a moment too soon in coming, but JP&M Doyle's new website (one of the 4pm sites) you could say is nearly worth the wait. It is streets ahead of the old one.


There's some pretty big claims, including: "We have a number of unique marketing tools, which no other estate agent can offer you". We can't quite find what they are on the website. Maybe someone could let us know ...

RE/MAX Exclusive mark Halloween

http://www.remax-ireland.com/OfficeProfile.aspx?OfficeId=9082

GVM's website is admirable

Created by some crowd called DESIGNWORX.ie based in Limerick and using some (I would guess) in-house code they are packaging as Property Hub, hoping perhaps to make it available to other agents.

The thing is, it is clearly influenced, in my opinion, by Blog designs (like this Blogger one), and I like that.

Gob stoppingly poor standards

This has got to be the worst-ever description of a property Agent PW has ever come across. It's for a 1-bed cottage bang on the coast in Co Clare between Kinvara and Ballyvaughan.

"The Mother Of All Locations!!!
Stunning Holiday Cottage Which Offers Privacy Most Rarely Seen In A Setting That Is Eye Watering"

At €500,000 one would hope they'd have more to say about it in the description than this drivel. If I was the vendor I'd have them taken off the instruction immediately.

Mr Tayto is not alone