Ah, the rumors are swirling...
For those of you who don't know, our local real estate behemoth Homesale Services Group left the Coldwell Banker franchise April 1st, making the announcement that morning at a surprise agent meeting and via email as I have heard it. They decided to change their affiliation to Prudential, claiming an improvement in service to their customers. Of course there's much more to that, I'm sure...rumors of financial instability at CB corporate are all over the business sector. I was pretty blown away by the move, my marketing experience telling me that they would be forfeiting 25 years of brand recognition. After all, let's face it - customers are looking for the blue logo, and that's it. I suppose that after a few years the new identity will sink on to Lancaster's collective consciousness, but wow...it must have taken a serious falling out between the two firms to cause such a traumatic move.
So Coldwell Banker, the logo so synonymous with real estate in Lancaster PA, is gone. But wait!
Today the new breaking news is that another decent-sized local firm has brokered a deal to take over the blue logo. When I heard which company, I was completely unsurprised. In fact, I had thought of this company immediately once I had heard about Homesale giving up the franchise. I'll decline to name the company until the official announcement, but only say that I used to work there and know the owners to be innovative and able to see the potential with taking over the Coldwell Banker logo here in Lancaster and surrounding counties. Frankly, I wish I had the money to have done it!
My understanding is that a well-known broker from another office has joined forces with the new local franchise under the name of Coldwell Banker Select Professionals to create a Lancaster Coldwell Banker presence. We'll have to wait for the official announcements - but you heard it here first!
Jason - In the racing world they call this sort of back-and-forth "silly season".
Jeannie - Look at it this way - you can't wait forever to blog about it...after all, it's going to impact your associations with customers in the blogosphere.
Maybe it's time for another Lancaster bloggers summit...
Thanks Katerina - of course you're absolutely correct (takes a bow).
Maybe it's time for another Lancaster bloggers summit...
I'm all for it. Time? Place?
"silly season".
Lol, I never heard that one Jeff.
Jeff,
Thought I might stop in and say hello. I appreciate the compliment about innovation and was just thinking about calling you to see if you'd be willing to head up the web marketing for some friends of mine with a blue logo. You do a great job here. We did see this move as a huge opportunity for our firm to grow, reinvent ourselves, and put all we've learned over the last few years to good use with a first class partner. I've spent the last month working side by side with the team at CB Corporate and Realogy and can state with certainty that the brand is here to stay in Lancaster and the country as a whole.
Agent rankings alone support CB strength to fight through a down market...120,140 associates VS. 68,000 at Pru. CB and C21 (both Realogy companies) have more associates than RE/MAX (#3), Keller Williams (#4) and Prudential (#5) combined. I will not comment on the business decisions made by others as they have a track record of running successful businesses.
We wanted the opportunity to grow and attract top talent. This brand gave us that opportunity and we're grateful. 25%+/- market share for 10+ years with 30,000+/- transaction sides closed in that same 10 year period! We're going Blue for You.
RH
Ryan - thanks for the comment - of course I think it's the way to go. I was blown away when I first heard the April 1st announcement and was counting the days before we saw someone step in to that void. You know I was thinking about Q and you...it will certainly be different with the blue logo after these years as an "independent" in the market. If you recreate the office and broker environment that initially drew & kept the top talents to CB, with the brand recognition as a constant, I'm sure you'll be successful in your recruiting efforts.
I love the tag line. Make that call...
Frankly, it makes no differnece what franchise a company buys into. The core of each company is unchanged and that is demonstrated by the apparent need to print false and misleading information about the competition. The waiver in small print certainly doesn't disqualify what is already done. The general public does business with an agent they can trust and has very little concern for the name on the sign.
Oh, I can't say that I necessarily agree with that. Brand loyalty is a well-established marketing concept - why else would the brand names in any industry fight so hard against counterfeitors and any impingment on their "good name"? The reality is that 1) If you ask 100 people on the street in Lancaster who the biggest real estate company is here they will say promptly "Coldwell Banker", and 2) those people will call "Coldwell Banker" to get a listing agent out to the house or to see homes. The brand is where the broad-appeal marketing power is, in my opinion. (Of course, if there's an existing relationship then that would hopefully take precedence...but even then not always).
Good points, Joanne. I think it's never so cut and dried that a company should go one way or another. For L&F's Lancaster office, there's no doubt that the solid foundation of quality agents we had at the very beginning in Lancaster (thanks largely to you) has led to the ongoing migration here of so many more good ones. Even we were "selling the brand" at first because we were trying to educate Lancaster about the existence of this spectaculr company just across the state line...
The Coldwell Banker brand is going to take Realty Select to new heights of company performance - IF they can put together a strong, professional management team that garners ongoing respect from the seasoned agents in this market and works hard to leverage the CB-brand goodwill that homesale left on the table. Only time will tell.