The Insider: Issue 043
OK, it’s on! This week we’re tottering on the fine line between brilliant and stupid, celebrating Insider partnerships, and seeing how brand “voice and tone” is done.
Last Week This Week
“Zillow meets TikTok” — that either sounds blunderingly stupid, brilliant, or, depending on how long you think about it, both. Anyway, this is how a new app called Playhouse is describing itself. Inman wrote two stories about it last week. We downloaded the app. And, tbh, it’s pretty lame right now. We’re not sure people are actually interested in, or will be mesmerized by, home listings presented in this way. But then we’re not quite ready to write this kind of thing off either. For years, many have been saying that home search is “fully baked” — that, with the exception of the 3D tours, the UX has been pretty much locked-in. That seems like a questionable assumption. So whether Playhouse flies or dies, it’s got us thinking about what’s next.
DC-based brokerage RLAH affiliated with @properties. Congratulations to these two Inside member companies. RLAH had been affiliated with Real Living, which ceased operations last year. @propeties, which began franchising in 2020, acquired Christie’s International Real Estate in 2021. Both companies are run by super-sharp operators. We’re keeping an eye on @ as the company continues to make big moves as a non venture-backed private company.
Speaking of non venture-backed private real estate companies that are making big moves while also being Inside members, Howard Hanna acquired Ohio-based HER Realtors.com. Howard Hanna is kind of the ALT-Compass, buying share in mid-market areas, while already having a mortgage/title/insurance platform in place, and being free from the obligation to deliver on grandiose tech promises.
Have You Heard About This?
Step Inside My Oval Garden
It’s always fun to see how others live, and check out interesting and unique structures and architecture. Along those lines, Søren Carl Theodor Marius Sørensen, considered one of the greatest landscape architects ever, created a famous oval gardens project in Copenhagen in 1948 (pictured above). The project consists of 40 oval allotment gardens, each measuring approximately 25 × 15 m, laid out on a rolling lawn, between public housing on one side and more traditional allotments on the other. 70 years later, and the oval gardens of Naerum are still one of the biggest attractions in the Danish capital. So yeah…a couple dozen families live inside gardens. Looks and sounds dreamy. Check out more photos here.
What's Inside
Join your fellow Insiders in The Lounge next Friday, 4/22 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern for discussion and workshopping on marketing and ad copy. We’ll get down to the nitty-gritty details you can take back to your business immediately.
How do brokers and agents make a go of it with 1% commissions? Listen to episode 2 of the Insiders-only Other Ways podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to find out.
Inspiration Point
Manly Soap Lessons
Voice and tone is a critical aspect of branding that is squishy and hard to understand. You know it when you see it. But how the heck do you find yours, craft yours, enforce yours? Enter: manly soap company, Duke Cannon. This clip above is a cherry bomb of an About Us web page that immediately conveys a unique voice and tone that sticks with you long after reading. Pursue through their website and note details like “Buy Stuff” (instead of “Products”) and “Top Smellers” (instead of “Top Sellers”) in the top navigation bar. And this gem from their FAQ: “At Duke Cannon, we believe dogs are even better than best friends. A dog, after all, will never call you at 2am to bail him out of jail, and he’ll never subtly hit on your wife. We love dogs.”
Yep, we know this is soap for guys. That’s kind of the point. One of the things Duke Cannon does very well is pull off a voice and tone that will attract their ideal customers and deter everyone else. Something to think about.
Quote of the week
“The greatest mistake marketers make is trying to create demand.”
— Eugene Schwartz
