The little ‘R’ has meant big things for the Greater Worcester Board of Realtors.
After kicking off an aggressive multimedia advertising campaign in late 1999, the Central Massachusetts board is reporting unprecedented reaction to its ads, from its consumers and members alike.
Not only has the campaign – which focuses on the stylized block ‘R’ logo that designates Realtor affiliation – sparked a new awareness and respect for the designation, according to the board’s leaders, but it signals a break from a tradition where local Realtor organizations rely solely on advertising from the national and state levels.
Local chapters don’t typically do their own thing, said Robin Berthold, director of sales and development for Advertising Assoc. of Worcester. Advertising Assoc. handled the campaign for the Greater Worcester Board of Realtors.
They’re really aggressive, and [1999 board President] T Love takes an active role, Berthold continued. She wanted the chapter to expand its membership and educate the consumer.
Sometimes you don’t even see ads from the state or national level, Love said, explaining why her board decided to branch on its own with local advertising. And with the national ads that were running last year, we didn’t feel that consumers were getting a true picture of what the Realtor does. Some of the stuff they had Realtors doing in those national ads goes against Massachusetts law.
There’s a difference between a real estate agent and a Realtor, and we wanted the public to make sure their real estate representative had that little ‘R’ on their business card, she continued.
To achieve that goal, the board started looking at the idea of starting a public awareness and advertising campaign and began looking to advertising agencies for their input around June of last year. The result: a billboard and television campaign with the slogan This little ‘R’ means big things at the center of it all. Billboards with the Realtor logo began sprouting up on Worcester-area roadsides in September, Love said.
The campaign presented some challenges to Berthold and her company.
The problem was that they’re only a chapter, so they didn’t have a lot of power to change anything, she said. We had the Realtor logo to work with, and I couldn’t change that logo, so we capitalized on the little ‘R.’
We had to go to six different PR [public relations] firms before finding Robin because a lot of them wanted to change the little ‘R.’ said Love, a Realtor with Century 21/Millennium in Upton. That’s like going to a doctor and saying you want to change the Aesculpian staff.
In addition to about ten billboards with the slogan appearing throughout the Greater Worcester area, a television commercial was broadcast on the local access channel as well as some of the cable TV channels. The TV ad features a home-buying couple being presented with an old, haunted house, followed by assurances that if one works with a Realtor, this situation would never happen.
There are two things that people hate to buy: a pair of jeans and real estate, Berthold said. Both are really tough to deal with. We wanted to let the consumer know that the people with the little ‘R’ are here to help.
‘Ugly Stereotype’
Berthold said that the idea behind the slogan was to get people to approach a Realtor and ask what it meant, and so far the campaign has proved successful in that respect.
In addition to creating a better awareness among the general public, board officials also said the advertising campaign was launched with another goal in mind; increasing pride and respect among the Realtors themselves.
It was a way to get the attention of both the consumer and the Realtor, Berthold said. There’s this ugly stereotype of a real estate agent out there, and a lot of people don’t know the difference between them and a Realtor.
By exposing the idea to the public that they should know [Realtors] are qualified, it makes the Realtors respect their profession, she continued.
Love said her board spent about $150,000 on the campaign in 1999. It’s something we felt we needed to do, both for the Realtors and the public, she said. They say if you want to make money you have to invest in the company, but since we’re a non-profit group we invest in our members. That helps the public, which ultimately helps the members.
Love said she was unaware of any other local board that had done advertising on its own. That may change, if recent reaction to the campaign is any indicator.
At a leadership conference held in Newton in early December 1999, Love presented the Worcester board’s ad campaign to a group of Realtors from across the state as an example of a successful marketing campaign. As I came down off the stage, people were running up and throwing their business cards at me and asking if I would do presentations at their local board meetings, she said.
While excited that other boards wanted to learn from her board’s success, she was quick to point out the whole campaign is owned and copyrighted by the Worcester board. They just can’t take our ads and use them for their own, although I’m sure a lot of boards would love to piggyback on what we’ve done.
Building on the success of the billboard and television advertising, the Greater Worcester Board of Realtors and Advertising Assoc. plan on launching a second phase of the campaign sometime early this year. Love said the board has not yet decided exactly what the second phase will entail.
We just want to make sure our members are cared about. We’re here to help out the membership, she said.
