21 Mar 2011

Home art

I imagine being in the business of making brochures for residential properties must be quite a satisfactory one. The builder provides you with the basics of what the house is going to be and probably adds a Shah Rukh Khan movie type dialogue ‘Beta, now let your mind soar to the skies’

Which is probably why all the brochures I have seen so far are along these lines

1. The property invariably seems to be located in so much greenery that you can’t be blamed for mistaking it is going to built in the middle of Hyde Park or Central Park.

2. The road in front of the house is usually a three lane highway, with a modest two cars going in either direction.

3. The building is gleaming from far like a spaceship freshly landed on earth

4. All the residents, not one or two but all, are white. As if mysteriously a whole village in Scandinavia decided to move to the spaceship located in the middle of Hyde Park.

The building insides don’t disappoint either. Breathtaking lobby, lifts that you would want to be trapped in forever, glossy stairwells, classy interiors.

It is the kind of brochure that makes the reader want to whip out the chequebook and sign the dotted line and wait for the weekend to roll in, so that one can make the journey to buy a part of Valhalla.

The weekend jaunt unfortunately is always a reality (or should I say realty..har har) check. One takes in the unpaved approach road, the noisy slum nearby and immediately thinks 'God-knows-what-else-was-imagined-in-the-brochure'

At this point one would expect that the eager brochure-reader cum Valhalla-buyer must be crying tears of agony at being so cheated by an illusion more powerful than the ones that appear in Indian myths.

But no.

Usually, the real estate agent has also mentioned the expected price per square foot, a number which is even more in the realm of imagination than the brochure itself.

Personally, I usually reach out for the brochure and toss it into a bin with more satisfaction than the artist must have got designing it.

Then I go back and hit the net for my next brochure.






3 comments:

SK said...

Hahha!

They take pics of old/small homes with wide angle lens to make it look bigger and do lot of photoshop to make it look all sparkly.
Phew! Also model homes, have the kind of furniture that just about fills up the house, making it look perfect. Gimmicks gimmicks.

Cmon, being an MBA you should know the marketing gimmicks. :--)

Anita said...

SK - What can I say! I am just a brochure junkie.

byker7 said...

There is a very good reason the average residential property brochure, is a work of fiction. This is because the builder's marketing manager tells the creative team absolutely nothing, except.

1.) We have a new property coming up in (insert arse-end of town here).

2.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

3.) It's just another grey box. There's nothing special about it. So it's contemporary.

4.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

5.) There's no model flat. And we don't plan to have one.

6.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

7.) We have no budget for images, so please make composites from the images we paid for 4 years ago, and plug them in. Again.

8.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

9.) Price is (insert absurd amount here.)

10.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

11.) We need a contemporary name.

12.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

13.) Here are the facilities and amenities. Yes, they are exactly the same as (insert competitor's name here) project, but we need to highlight them.

14.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

15.) Do something creative. We are talking to young, modern-yet-traditional couples. But keep it simple so the sales guys can understand.

16.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

17.) Please hurry, MD is taking my arse.

18.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.

19.) Nice concept, but we need to change the name, because (insert vaastu consultant/numerologist/family pundit/office pundit/j v partner/ builder's wife/builder's daughter/random ass walking on sidewalk) doesn't like the name.

20.) We need the brochure yesterday, because launch is day after.