Our agency knows powerful creative when we see it and we’ve seen first-hand how courageous creative marketing can redefine traditional strategies and impact the sector significantly. While the CRE industry might be seen as a space where innovation occurs at a slower pace, two instances come to mind where daring and creative marketing approaches led to remarkable results.
1.CBRE’s “Build on Advantage” Campaign: The world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, CBRE, launched a global brand campaign named “Build on Advantage” back in 2015. This wasn’t just a usual marketing campaign—it marked a courageous and creative shift in the CRE industry’s marketing approach.
Typically, CRE marketing focused heavily on property features and local market conditions, leaving little room for brand differentiation. With this campaign, CBRE ventured outside this norm, turning the focus onto the value of their services and the benefits clients can reap by leveraging them. The campaign revolved around storytelling—sharing real client success stories and how CBRE’s services enabled them.
The content was showcased across various media platforms, including outdoor, digital, print, and social media. This campaign was a courageous step, as it moved away from traditional property-centric advertising to a more service-centric model. It was a strategic effort to connect with clients on a deeper, more personal level.
The result? It was a massive success, creating significant brand awareness and further strengthening CBRE’s position as an industry leader. This campaign demonstrated the potential of moving beyond traditional marketing methods and embracing creative storytelling and personal connection in the CRE industry.
2.WeWork’s Community-focused Approach: WeWork is a real estate company that provides shared workspaces. What sets them apart is not just their modern, appealing office spaces, but their marketing approach. In an industry where property features often take the front seat, WeWork courageously focused on community-building as its core marketing strategy.
WeWork created an environment where freelancers, startups, and even large corporations could not just share a physical space, but also ideas, knowledge, and experiences. Their marketing campaigns heavily featured this sense of community, utilizing client testimonials, events, and digital content showcasing their spaces as hubs of innovation and collaboration.
This community-centric marketing strategy is creative and courageous as it challenges the conventional understanding of what a workspace should provide—going beyond just a physical location to a community that fosters growth and collaboration.
The result of this daring approach? WeWork has grown into a globally recognized brand with locations in more than 110 cities. It’s redefined the idea of a workspace, showcasing the success that can come from a creative, community-focused marketing strategy in the CRE industry.
Both CBRE’s “Build on Advantage” campaign and WeWork’s community-focused marketing have challenged traditional norms in the CRE industry. These bold, innovative strategies have shown that daring to be different—thinking courageously and creatively—can lead to significant brand differentiation and success in an industry often characterized by its traditionalism.
