Daniel Cobb, the family run, central and south London estate agent has launched over 20 different creative executions of their For Sale and To Let boards.
Managing director George Cobb, who has a well-established background in marketing, working for large brands such as Nestlé and Coca-Cola, has been working closely with creative agency Starberry to produce that new boards.
Daniel Cobb has gone bold and decided to remove any of the visual cues and wording normally associated with traditional for sale and to let boards. Instead, they have gone for a design that uses a series of messages that they hope will prove fresh and engaging.
The board messages include things like:
- I’m yours
- Let’s do this
- This is the one
- Your next home?
- Buy me quick
- Let’s get going
- let the good times roll
- Just right
- Own it
- Rent me quick
- One Happy home
- I got owned
- We’ve got more
- Let there be love
- I got Let
- Another one Let
… the list goes on!
Cobb said: “I am very excited about this creative idea; it’s fresh, innovative and is quite unlike anything that’s been done before. For Sale and Let Boards outside homes are still one the most effective ways to generate interest for a property.
“Having a board outside your home doesn’t need explaining, it has become synonymous with Selling or Letting. In accepting that, this has given us much more creative freedom to bring a range of ideas that are truly unique as well as reflecting our brand personality.
“My favourites are: I’m yours, This is the one and Let’s do this. After we started writing the first few, we couldn’t stop and the different phrases just kept on coming. This latest board refresh is part of an ongoing review of the entire property marketing mix.
“We’re responsible for homeowners’ most valuable asset, so when coming to market their property we need a marketing strategy which connects with its target audience at every touchpoint and we believe the board will do just that.”
I’m guessing that the inspiration for that lot came from a packet of Love Hearts?
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Always nice to see something different but don’t they break planning laws?
You can only have For Sale
It would only take a call from a competitor agent to the local council to make it a waste of money.
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Nothing new here. Others have been using similar boards for years. Also good luck with the T & C planners!
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Ha Ha! If this is what ‘innovation’ or ‘reinvention’ represents in the industry we need to take a hard look at ourselves….what next, a solar light to take it into the 21 Century and be called ‘prop tech? Quirky and a bit mirth inducing at best but dear god let’s not stuff ourselves on such hyperbole so early in the morning.
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Do not say that name into a mirror 5 times.
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Always good to try something new. May need to cut down on the variety of messages – too many dissipate the central one(s). Also, the background colour could be a problem during the darker months of the year.
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Thanks for the constructive feedback George. There are some useful thoughts there, I’ll take that on board.
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God forbid an agent tries to stand out from the crowd eh! Sometimes you need to try something different, doesn’t always work but as long as you learn from it I don’t see the problem. Good luck with them and hopefully the council will be happy.
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Thank you Tcos, I appreciate the support. I totally agree, we’re trying something new and let’s see how we get on. All the best. George
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The boards look great. Well done for doing something different and creative George. A few comments from Nancy’s on here. Don’t be bitter, do better.
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Thanks for the support Vicky. Much appreciated. The good news is that we’ve had a great response from clients already.
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Let’s think of some other wording.
I will start the ball rolling.
For Sale:- Getting Divorced
SSTC:- Getting Remarried
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For Sale – Can’t pay the mortgage
For Sale – I’ve died and gone to a better place
Let – Couldn’t afford to buy
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Always think it’s a great idea to put a phone number or web address I even if they are in the corner.
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I am a BIG advocate of the power of For Sale and To Let boards, one Saturday morning monitoring traffic (as you do) I noticed a massive spike in traffic for a single property, we traced the cause- the board firm put a board up!
Looking at that traffic, 80% of views were unique, the people only looked at the one property, they looked for 18 seconds average.
What were they doing? looking up the price.
Yesterday KW wanted to know what I’ve been up to. I have been building a system that allows consumers to find out the price of property from Google not the portals- voice search optimised, address search.
The portals boomed because of their timing, it was hard to find Daniel Cobb on the internet 20 years ago so all the listings in one place; an aggregating portal was the way to go, that HAS changed now, the portals as a serious property search system are done. As a ‘Kay’s catalogue’ for looking at the pictures they have a place
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Big goof ….. nothing like making the customer have to search for you. Have they disconnected the phone and their web site and why they have omitted the detail. Little things like that annoy customers.
Some of the messages relate to who? The roofer, the landscape gardner, the local burglar …. oh they are estate agents, would never have known.
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Google? With 5.6 billion searches daily, I don’t think people have an issue with that. They get to see your company reviews and click a button to call the office. If you’re lucky and have a great website, they get to see that too. Great intro to the brand.
They are clearly agency boards too, but even if they weren’t, more chance of people searching for you (that’s a good thing). Don’t be scared to try something new/different. It’s scarier to stay the same in world that’s changing daily.
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Only you don’t want people to have to google to know what you are talking about, let alone wonder who you are or going on about. One of the principles of advertising effectively is the ‘KISS principle’ and instant relevance to your customers. What these boards do not do, is ‘identify’ to your target public a professional company that you would run to join with. That is the purpose of the board, to drive consumers to you and while thinking about that, the consumer will be asking the question …. will it drive the consumer to my property … if that is what they advertising? Agents do not sell a product but a service and a fact that a wrong board design is a turn off and always has been.
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Blimey a lot of agents got out of bed on the wrong side this morning! When you see an ad for Apple do they plaster it with contact details and website addresses? nope. Same with any established brand- that can be national or local- failing that there’s this brand new thing called google. Looks good and a bit fun- good luck I say!
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Well being different isn’t the done thing in this industry is it? 😉
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