Our next story started when Keeli Simpson, who has spent her career working at advertising agencies from Atlanta to Seattle and for brands like Coke Zero and Sprite, contacted us. She loves “a good marketing assignment” and decided to give a boost to her husband’s business and real estate branding.
In search of a unique present for his approaching birthday and after analyzing his trade, Keeli found out some interesting things happening in the real estate business:
Lack of real estate branding
“I noticed that many real estate agents and teams lack a brand – they oftentimes just utilize a basic real estate “template” for their marketing efforts which doesn’t showcase anything about who they are and what they are all about. So, if I see “Johnny Real Estate Team” for example, even if they are the top producing real estate team in my area, I feel NOTHING for them unless I personally know and like or dislike them.“
Adding personality to dry data with the help of illustration
We can’t agree more with Keeli that…
Your branding reflects who you are!
“My husband leads his own real estate team (Simpson Real Estate Group) within Keller Williams… If you know my husband, Jamie, he has a BIG personality, is very fun and charismatic. It’s one of the reasons that his clients love to work with him. However, none of his marketing efforts reflected his “brand”, so I thought that it would be a fun birthday gift to give him a character showcasing his uniqueness that could be used in all of his communication and marketing efforts.”
What GraphicMama did for Jamie…
The client had been doing some research and browsing through our gallery and she liked one of our characters – Harry Beard. She found some similarities with her husband, Jamie, and she wanted some customizations to the existing character so that the final character would perfectly fit her vision. She contacted us and requested the following:
- changing the shirt of the existing character to a company’s T-shirt of her husband’s;
- custom drawn face – from photos the client provided;
- the client also wanted to apply the changes to the entire set of poses we have for Harry; that way she could easily make new graphics for their marketing campaigns;
Customization character sketches for real estate
Color schemes for the chosen character design concept
… And the final result
Here is what Keeli, our client, shared with us:
“To date, we have used this character in all of his marketing material (presentations, flyers, etc.) with an extremely positive response. Most people laugh when they see it, which is a great thing because the world needs more laughter and that’s the response that most people have to Jamie’s fun-loving personality.”
The possibilities of a cartoon are unlimited…
Keeli has some strong arguments why using a character for branding is a great idea, and she shared with us some of her ideas for future applications of the mascot:
- Breaks the tension
“Since real estate transactions can obviously become stressful, we have also used the character to help break some of the tension (in agent-to-agent negotiations, stressful buyer or seller conversations, etc.). The character helps “humanize” Jamie as a person and not just a “real estate agent”.”
- Draws attention
“My favorite way that we have used him is in conjunction with our work charitable efforts. The character has helped draw people’s attention to causes that are dear to our heart to generate donations; as well as thank people “personally” for their support.”
- Reinforces social media presence
“We are starting to use him more and more in our social media content, website, email signatures, etc. We also want to add him as an attention-catching detail for Open House and For Sale Signs.”
Wondering what else can characters do for your business?
If you liked this case study, we are sure you will also enjoy some zoo professor’s adventures and the shocking story of a lovely granny… secretly hating her job! Grabbed your attention? Check them out – they are inspiring, sweet and short stories!
