Branding Moment: The Intention Is Good, & the Message Confusing!

The whole intent of luxury real estate branding and marketing is to have a clear cut message. In order to have the desired impact this message should be easily understood. This is the primary way to achieve visibility and recognition in your market place.

Pictured above is a kiosk and a plexiglas sign from the Squire Foundation. This is located near the entry door to the Santa Barbara Public Market which is a large warehouse one story building that is home to various restaurants and a wine bar. It caught our attention, as did the claim that this was an unplugged moment to enjoy.  We found it ironic that the whole thing faced the sports bar/restaurant with 10 big screen TV's covering the sporting events around the world.

I chose a 3 minute short story.  I know that my high school English teacher would have labeled it as "purple prose".  It means,  "text that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw excessive attention to itself."  And I did not get the story at all.

Then, I asked the guys at the wine bar about this story/telling machine.  They told me that it has been there for three months, and it came from somewhere in England. They have tried the stories and thought, they were "just OK".  Clearly they were underwhelmed by the whole idea. That brought to mind a quote by George Bernard Shaw commenting on the fact that the British had a hard time understanding American English and vice versa:, "The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language."

Given that I was going to write a blog about this, I went on line and discovered that the foundation was located in Santa Barbara and not in England.  Here is their mission statement, "the Squire Foundation is a non-profit empowerment foundation, dedicated to civic and educational programs for artist, curators and all manner of creative people."

As I watched people filing in for lunch, no one looked at the kiosk or helped themselves to even a one minute story.  They were focused on that TV screen....It brought to mind another quote," the road to hell is paved with good intentions."