ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

What is the winning formula for residential property advertising ? First you need a fancy name : Lake Silver in English and 銀湖天峰 in Chinese. (I'm sure any taxi driver wouldn't know where you want to go just by telling the name of it). Second, pick a high class music, if classical is not high class enough, you can consider an opera song. Then you need to shoot some aspirational scenarios, some Greek islands or landscapes in Europe perhaps. And most importantly, you need to highlight the luxurious clubhouse in the ad (for most people, clubhouse is something nice to have but seldom used). Onto how to catch people's attention ? Easy. If 30 seconds is not good enough, make it a 60 seconds or longer ! Here you go. We are proud to present Lake Silver !

The Olympics is round the corner and many advertisers are trying to get some associations with the big event. The images of this Midland's TVC are intended to associate with the Olympic Equestrian event to be held in Hong Kong, With the Unicorn leading the way, it attempts to project a leadership image. Yet, doesn't the whole ad look very familiar ? I bet no one will really remember this ad as the images are so generic. In comparison, the corporate TVC of Centaline is better in terms of idea and execution.

Do you find all corporate TVC are more or less the same ? They are not too memorable and most of the time, you just can't tell which is which. The reason is quite simple if we analyse the messages and supports of these ads. Messages are generic. One way or another, they tell you the company grows up with you and has been helping you in every stage of life, like this Centaline TVC plus all others : HSBC, Construction Bank, Cathay Pacific, you name it. When everyone is saying more or less the same thing, how could any single one cut through ? Creative execution has a role to play to make a difference but that has limit. It still the message that counts. Another thing is that these ads usually lack supports. The reasons why and the hows. For example, for this Centaline ad, should it at least say something about how many professional agents are helping you find the perfect home ? Or the number of people they have helped in the past 30 years ? Without supports of some kind, it's jus...

This is the second TVC of StarWorld featuring Tony Leung. Compared with the last one, it's definitely an improvement and a high quality production. Luxury and glamour. You may feel that it looks very much similar to any of the residential estate ads. I feel so too but I don't blame it. Luxury and glamour belong to hotels and casinos. It's on the right track. It's just that such images of luxury and glamour are over-used by property developers to sell residential estates.

Thanks to YouTube, I have found the archive of the Beverly Hills TVC that uses Fung Shui as the selling point. The whole ad is a joke. Who on earth would use superstitious claims to sell a product publicly ? Guess only HK advertisers can think of that and I wonder how this ad can pass censorship too. Another funny thing about the advertising of the Beverly Hills is that on one hand it uses European royalty and glamour as the angle in one ad and Chinese Fung Shui in another. That's creative, very creative indeed.

Exaggeration is the name of the game in property advertising. It seems the degree of exaggeration goes with the price of the property. The name speaks it all : The Beverly Hills. Where on earth is it ? It's not in LA but in 大埔. And here is the official description from 恒 基 : 大埔吐露港灣畔海景豪華府第「比華利山別墅」，隆重呈獻超級豪華裝修皇宮別墅 ! In addition to this royal kind of luxury, there i s one more innovative selling point about it if you happened to watch TV on the new year day. A two-minute ad was aired and in the ad there were like 6 Fung Shui masters praising about its good Fung Shui. So good that generations can benefit from it ! I wonder whether we can complain to TELA for such a misleading, superstitious claim.

I haven't seen too many property ads elsewhere but I guess HK property ads are the most outrageous in the world. There are overclaims and exaggerations and some of them are simply jokes. Exaggerated claims and exaggerated prices are name of the game in property business. Can't they just go back to basics that consumers are really looking for, things like reasonable price, comfort, location convenience and so on ? Like this ad, it says you will need a lot of swimsuits in your wardrobe because there is a 35m swimming pool. People won't buy a flat because of the length of the swimming pool, right ? And look at the swimming pool in the background of the ad. 35m swimming pool ??? I guess they must have chosen the wrong location to take the shot.

Seen this stupid property ad on TV ? Nano Living ! What the hell does it mean ? The ad doesn't explain. So I had to check the net to see what it is about and in fact, people on the net are talking about it already, talking about its stupidity. This property is in Ma On Shan and developed by Mr. Li, Cheung Kong. Who on earth would have come up with such an ingenious theme ? Nano means very very small. So do they really mean their flats are tiny ? They are really brave enough to admit it. Guess someone will be fired ... I mean the one who approved it.

If you are my regular blog reader, you knew I would talk about this 翔龍灣 Miss Universe campaign from 恒基. We all scratch our heads what Miss Universe has to do with apartment sale. OK, we all see the intention of conveying the feeling of elegance, International and 矚目. The problem is that although she is the Miss Universe, she's not familiar to us; someone we can't feel close to. She's just a not-that-bad-looking, 高頭大碼, blond 鬼妹. And the execution is not very exciting. It simply reminds me of those old cognac ads from the 80's ...