Corny but True!!

I met a chap on a valuation this week who said he always thought the weekly ‘Cole-face’ articles were a bit corny. I think a little to his surprise I whole-heartedly agreed. However I then asked him if he made a point to read it every week, which he confirmed he did. Therein of course lies the value in the idea and the point of trying to come up with something new each week, no matter how cheesy!
 
In the old days of Estate Agent advertising you could be different simply by being in colour rather than black and white, but nowadays when colour print is standard it’s harder to make the Imagine advert stand out from the rest. You can tell those ads that have had some time and effort put in to the design and that undoubtedly helps attract the reader, but trying to make your advert ‘the one’ that people view, required a little more creativity.
 
In truth, like most good ideas, there was an element of plagiarism. In my early days in the business, the competitor of the agent I worked for ran his business from an office that hadn’t received a lick of paint in years. He had a mongrel dog called Gipsy who went with him to work, very much becoming part of the furniture. Not everybody’s idea of a professional operation, but there was an element of eccentric appeal. This was taken to even greater levels in their weekly advert though.
 
Every issue included a new picture of Gipsy in a variety of canine poses (all under the heading ‘Gipsy Says’); chewing a bone, wearing a hat, licking a child’s face etc. As a special treat for the holiday season, Gipsy usually came with a beach shot of some description. Over the photo would be a cartoon speech bubble supposedly quoting the dog’s latest thoughts. There was probably some comedy potential here but the captions were usually incredibly naff; Gipsy says “I can’t wait for the weekend to go running in the park” was pretty much the level. The thing was, no matter how ludicrous the idea sounds, every week most of us couldn’t stay away and just had to see what Gipsy had in store for us.
 
Hopefully at Imagine our weekly column has been slightly more entertaining than Gipsy managed (although some of you may disagree). You’ll be pleased to hear that we’re not planning to change the photo of me on a regular basis, nor include any snaps of me on the beach! What we do know from the feedback we get is that like it, love it or loathe it, people do turn to the Imagine page to read it. For people looking to sell their homes, they’ll be pleased to know that more people are looking at our adverts in the paper as it means we’ve got more chance of selling their home. It may only be a small benefit, but if we look for small advantages in every area we can, then the overall product we offer becomes much more attractive than our competitors. Which advert would you like to see your home in?