Why does your child want a £100 pair of Nike trainers?

If your brand doesn’t have a distinct personality then it becomes a commodity and if it does then heed the warning about “Telling the world about it”.

It doesn’t matter what your company really stands for until whatever it is, is firmly lodged in the minds of your potential or actual customers.

You can have the most fantastic products, processes and services imaginable but if the customer thinks you are rubbish - then you are rubbish. The customer’s perception is the only reality.

And it takes a long time, and sometimes a lot of money, to change perceptions.

Even today as a result of just 30 minutes of a famous World In Action television programme in the early 1980s a lot of potential house buyers have deep reservations about buying a timber frame house. The words timber frame and Barratt reverberate around the focus groups.

As an aside, don’t you think it sad that such an important industry as ours has apparently failed to create enough good news over the last 15 years or so to replace these negative perceptions?

What constitutes a distinct personality for a brand?

Moving on from Tom Peters’ simple starting point a review of the leading textbooks makes it clear that the distinct personality of a brand comes from its ability to provide recognisable - and relevant - added values to the customer.

There are many examples given from leading brands like British Airways, Nordstrom, Virgin etc but no textbook to my knowledge has ever attempted to describe branding in housebuilding - not even in the USA. Presumably there’s nothing much to write about although it could have been so different.

So let’s put the textbooks aside and start working on our own theory and practise of branding in housebuilding.

The unique challenge of adding value in housebuilding

The term “adding value” is used frequently in business. However l have rarely seen a simple way to describe value from the customer’s point of view. The examples above are the best I have ever found. I use them to help clients think about their businesses like customers.

Adding value in housebuilding creates some interesting challenges. The buying process is long, the ownership is long, the basic raw material (land) is very scarce, the production labour is subcontracted, the factories (developments) uproot every two years or so having built a handful of products and even the selling is often in others’ hands.

In addition housebuilders deliver both products and services.

Some of these services are part of the selling effort, for example:

• part exchange on the new home;

• mortgage help;

• advice on the legal process;

• optional extras (partly a service and a product); and

• interior design packages (ditto).

And some of these services are part of the housebuilder’s obligation to provide after sales care and remedial work.

On top of all of this is the land - the location. The biggest value adder of all.

Pose the following question: Why the hell should anybody buy from us?

If the sole answer is “Great locations” then on the basis that your competitors could have also purchased these locations you do not have a unique value proposition - you are not a brand.

If the answer is ‘our quality’ then ask yourself how you deliver this quality message to your customers. If they don’t see it like you see it then you have a perception/reality gap.

There will hopefully be many other reasons why anybody should buy from you. Consider each in turn and make sure that:

• it’s true;

• it is being delivered;

• your customers understand it in the same way that you do; and

• it actually gives more value to the customer than it costs you to deliver it.

Then challenge yourself to make it unique.

I have just read an article about a manufacturer who has managed to add value to salt and charge a premium for it. If salt can have distinct brand values: then as sure as hell housebuilders can.