The Insider: Issue 023
Creativity is hard. Attention to detail is free. In this issue, we explore some brands taking risks big and small to avoid ever being cast as someone else. Enjoy!
Last Week This Week
- Opendoor and Offerpad reported Q3 results last week. Bottom line: they did just fine. Opendoor exceeded expectations, squeezing out $35M in EBITDA, and growing revenue 91% YOY. Offerpad grew the top line 190% and reported $6.1 million in EBITDA.
- Business Insider published a story (subscription required) in which Zillow employees cited, more or less, bad vendor management for the failure of Zillow Homes. Seems Zillow wasn’t paying home contractors as well, or as quickly, as the other iBuyers. Some seized on this as the “real” reason behind Zillow’s retrenchment. This seems like a dubious explanation to us, as this would have been a very fixable problem, and certainly, in any case, not something that would bury a multibillion dollar business. The truth is complicated. And, anyway, it’s water under the bridge at this point. iBuying lives on.
- Online listings policy is being hashed at the NAR meeting in San Diego as we type this morning. Final votes from the NAR board of directors on two important questions should take place later today: 1.) Whether to permit buyer broker commissions to be published publicly, and, 2.) How to attribute buyer brokerages on IDX displays. These things sound wonky, and are easy to tune out, but given the current industry and regulatory environment, there’s a lot of strategic chess going on underneath the surface. Look for a breakdown of the results in next week’s Insider.
Have You Heard About This?
Dreaming of Irrational Holiday Promos
Here in America, the holiday shopping season can get quite out of hand. People can lose their minds, their good credit standing, or worse, their lives in insane in-store situations while Bing Crosby serenades the crowd through a loudspeaker. It’s brutal. But among the archives of the most memorable holiday promotions of all time was one brought to us in 2014 by Cards Against Humanity — and one that ended quite well. The self-described “party game for horrible people” bought a small island in Maine and gave a piece of it to each of its 250,000 “Holiday Bullshit Subscribers.” They renamed the island Hawaii 2, and gave each person who joined their promotion that year a license to use the island. License holders can enjoy their land anytime between the hours of 6am and 8pm, so long as they follow the simple rules outlined here. Sure makes all those “Free Shipping” promos seem kinda... forgettable, you know? Check out the story behind how they pulled this off.
What's Inside
In the past month, we’ve published Original Research on two important topics:
- Luxury real estate
- The MLS and co-brokerage
This week Thursday, join Brian for a 30-minute, Insiders-only briefing on what we took from this research and what it may mean for your business. Register here.
Agent Pulse
Commercial real estate juggernaut CoStar has cannonballed into the residential pool with acquisitions, Zillow-baiting, and a party at NAR annual last Saturday night that cost a reported $4 million. Their strategy has yet to unfold fully, but we want to get an early read on what agents think.
Here are the results from our panel of 600+ agents across the country:
Are you aware that CoStar, the commercial real estate data and software company, is making a big move into residential?
Yes: 69.6%
No: 30.4%
If yes, how do you feel about this right now?
Not sure how I feel about it yet: 59.7%
Concerned — I don’t see this as a good thing: 12%
Excited — I see this as a good thing: 13%
Lots of hearts and minds still undecided at this point. The marketing and messaging will continue, dialed to 11.
Inspiration Point
Stick Your Hand In This Cookie Jar
Cake batter. Why? Uhm… because it’s a birthday cake cookie? Caramelized butter because it’s way tastier (and bougier) than regular butter. Vanilla frosting because everyone hates the asshat that shows up to the Birthday party with some super random icing flavor. Oh, and there is also confetti and sprinkles because we’re celebrating your pretty face. < ======= This is a product description for a cookie called “50 Cent” on LA-based bake shop Last Crumb’s website. Above is a screenshot of the first impression on their homepage. We love how this brand mixes evocative photography with not-your-average cookie copy. Take from that what you will. Excuse us while we go raid the cookie jar.
This Very Natural Setting
Whoever is in charge of creating tourism campaigns for Iceland knocked another one out of the park with their latest campaign, Icelandverse, a humorous jab at Mark Zuckerberg’s unveiling of the “Metaverse” last month. There’s this virtual world that Facebook and VR offer. And then there’s real life, with places like Iceland. We love this campaign because it’s smart, funny, culturally relevant and self-aware. Check out the video here — “a revolutionary approach to how to connect our world without being super weird.”
Quote of the week
“The brand name Evian is so powerful that the last time we bought 1.5 liters, we paid $1.69. That same day, on a per-liter basis, Evian was selling for 20 percent more than Budweiser and 40 percent more than Borden’s milk. That’s the power of branding.”
— Al Ries & Laura Ries, from “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding”
