Broker Public Portal taps 1000watt for branding gig

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Takeaways:

• 1000watt will handle brand identity and messaging for the Broker Public Portal.
• If 1000watt does its job well, it could succeed in differentiating BPP from Zillow and realtor.com.
  
• “This project aligns with our experience perfectly,” said Marc Davison, a founding partner at 1000watt.

Once a quiet skeptic of the Broker Public Portal, 1000watt is lending a hand to the big broker initiative that promises “a better, simpler digital home search for consumers.”

With offices in Portland, Oregon, and Oakland, California, the highly specialized real estate consulting firm has its hands in lots of industry initiatives involving brokers and startups. The BBP executive committee selected the 8-year-old agency to create BPP’s brand identity and message.

Many of its members were already 1000watt clients. Other 1000watt clients have included Realogy, realtor.com, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, HomeServices of America, WFG Title, Michael Saunders & Company, dotloop, Sotheby’s International Realty, NextDeal and MRIS SmartCharts.

“We are excited to be moving forward with a strong and respected creative partner like 1000watt to bring our vision to life,” said Merle Whitehead, chairman of the BPP executive committee. “Their team understands real estate; they understand branding; and they are uniquely skilled at communicating.”

The BPP is an attempt to compete with Zillow and Move who now control the front end of the consumer homebuying process. Some of the largest brokers have come together to leverage their control over listing data to create their own online consumer experience.

Critics question whether the project can be sufficiently funded to make a dent in Zillow and Move’s market share. Both realtor.com and Zillow spent in excess of $100 million each in their formative stages to build consumer traffic.

However, a broker-owned portal could write its own industry-friendly rules for how data is displayed and used, which is why it has reportedly attracted support from 100 brokers nationwide.

One successful industry portal is the Houston Association of Realtors, HAR.com, which has been operating for 18 years and competes successfully with Zillow and realtor.com for consumer market share. It is the No. 1 consumer destination in Houston and No. 3 statewide.

If 1000watt does its job well, it could help BPP similarly differentiate itself from the big portals.

“This project aligns with our experience perfectly,” said Marc Davison, a founding partner at 1000watt. “We’ve helped innumerable real estate companies strengthen and communicate their brands.”