Episode 359 - Short Cuts with David Marine, Chief Marketing Office. Coldwell Banker

The podcast episode explores the growing interest in artificial intelligence (AI) in real estate and the need for agents to embrace its potential applications. It features David Marine, the chief marketing officer for Coldwell Banker, discussing the successful rebranding efforts of the company and the positive impact it had on changing people's perception. The conversation also touches on personnel changes, upcoming events featuring Shaquille O'Neal, and the partnership between Coldwell Banker and Amazon Prime for Thursday Night Football. The discussion emphasizes the importance of storytelling in creating a compelling brand and highlights the role of technology, particularly AI, in the real estate industry. It provides insights into the challenges and successes of rebranding and showcases the broader perspectives and interests of the individuals involved.00:00:00 - DavidThere's a lot you can't open your web browser today without seeing something around artificial intelligence and AI and all that stuff. And there's a lot of infatuation around it within the real estate, as there should be. I don't know where that's specifically going to go and how it's going to be used on a regular basis, but I know that it's going to be used and it's something that any agent out there needs to start Theorying out.00:00:29 - BillYou're listening to the Real Estate Sessions podcast and I'm your host, Bill Risser, executive Vice President, Strategic Partnerships with RateMyAgent, a digital marketing platform designed to help great agents harness the power of verified reviews. For more information, head on over to Ratemyagent.com. Listen in as I interview industry leaders and get their stories and journeys to the world of real estate. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 359 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend this is going to be another shortcuts episode where I kind of venture back in time, find a guest that I haven't heard from or chatted with in a little while. And this was a little bit more than a little while. This was nearly five years ago, in September of 2018, that I interviewed David Marine, the Chief Marketing Officer for Coldwell Banker. And so we're bringing him back. We're going to find out what's happening in his world. We're also going to probably bring up the Mets because he's a huge Mets fan, sports fan in general. So let's get this thing started. David, welcome to the podcast.00:01:31 - DavidThanks so much for having me back, Bill.00:01:33 - BillYou know, I didn't realize that it's been nearly five years since we last recorded that episode.00:01:39 - DavidI didn't realize that either until you had referenced in an email to me that we talked in 2018. And I'm like, man, that feels like the world has spun around a few times since then.00:01:51 - BillI was going to say we were in a whole different place in 2018. I mean, the market was doing great. We had this ten year run going, or call it eight year run, and everything was good and man, a lot's changed. And so let's start there. What I like to do on these shortcut episodes is ask the guest what's happened in your life. It could be professionally, personally, but in that time span, what's that one thing that stands out and you go, wow, this is a big moment in that five year period.00:02:22 - DavidYeah, pretty much. Probably like right after our podcast recording is when we started embarking on the rebrand effort for Coldwell Banker. And so rebranding the core brand, our global luxury, our commercial division basically took up four years of my life during that point in time and really great to be on the other side of that and also to see the impact that we hoped it would make. It did make in changing people's perception. It re energized our network and all that. And then since that time, also, I now have my oldest son in college. So finally those 529 plans I've been investing in for the last 17 years, finally starting to use them.00:03:04 - BillGood.00:03:04 - DavidAnd it's also depressing to see that, you know what, I thought there would be more money in there, but there isn't.00:03:10 - BillYeah. It's a big milestone as a parent is that first child going away. I'll give you another one. When your son turns 30, it's going to feel way different. When you tell people, when they say, how old's your son? You say, 30. It's a different feeling. I hit that.00:03:28 - DavidI can't even imagine that. But yes, you're so right. He's turning 19 this month, so even like, on the brink of 20 and having kid in your 20s seems like odd because in my own mind, I'm not that far from there. Right.00:03:43 - BillYeah, it was just a little while ago. No big deal. Yeah. Let me ask you a quick follow up on the rebrand. There had to be some feedback, both very positive but also negative. When that happened, how do you handle that? Did it take you someplace where you wondered if the team had made the right decision or did you stick to your guns and go, no, this is really where we need to be and this is why we're there?00:04:08 - DavidOh, yeah. There was plenty of feedback. I don't know if you realize this, but everyone in real estate is a marketing expert and just anyone in general is a marketing expert. But there was definitely feedback. There was negative feedback. And what was a big learning lesson for me, and I didn't anticipate at the time, was just how Coldwell Banker hadn't changed his logo for over 40 years. So this was a brand and identity that basically everybody had known and lived with for the majority of their lives. And then you're coming along and you're changing it, and change as a whole stirs up emotions. It's hard. So there was plenty of backlash. And I remember the weekend after it launched, just being at home and looking at all the comments on Facebook and that stuff and just reading everyone wondering, like, is this the right thing? Am I doing the right move in making this change? But at its core, I knew that this was something that had been talked about since I joined the company, which was 22 years ago, and always been debated, and no one took the plunge on it. But what it forced me to do, and the biggest lesson I learned is putting together a story as to why you're doing this that convinces both on the rational and the emotional side of things. And then what I saw is after we had talked about doing it and initially started showcasing it, I went on basically like a 20 city tour of telling that story to individuals and as soon as you got in front of them and you explained it, it was like instant, oh, makes perfect sense. And now you see that after the fact. It's like everybody loves it. I think we've sold and we don't make money on it, but we sold over a million dollars worth of apparel in the first year of it. So they're embracing it, they're embodying it. It is now just commonplace and everybody looking back will say like, yeah, this is the right move. But for the first couple of weeks afterwards, it was tense. So it was one of the biggest learning experiences of my career.00:06:12 - BillYeah, I just can't imagine that's such a big change, especially for there are a lot of longtime employees at Coldwell Banker. So that was part of your audience that you had to deal with. So congratulations on that. There's a lot of things that happened in the I don't want to call it the mothership, but Realogy becomes anywhere. Some recent changes. I mean, who thought Sherry Chris would ever retire? I didn't think that would ever happen. And then I know Ginger Wilcox from back in the day and she comes on board. Right. So there's a lot of stuff happening. But let's focus in on Coldwell Banker. Is there something that you can share? Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. That's either new or what's next?00:06:56 - DavidYeah, right now we're in the midst of it's weird because typically summer, a lot of people on vacation, things kind of slow down, the market, kind of cools a little bit. And this year we anticipated that the first half of the year was probably going to be a bit of a slow start. And then we're anticipating the back half of the year. Things are going to start picking up and momentum is going to build as you head into 2024. So we actually moved a lot of our focus to, hey, let's focus on the back half of the year to kind of prime the pump heading into what we expect to be a good 2024. So we've got our Gen Blue experience coming up in October, which we're always pumped about. It's our national event. I'm super excited because Shaquille O'Neill is our keynote speaker and in my mind, he is a American treasure. We should do everything we can to protect that man. He's just going to be fantastic. Not only hall of Fame basketball player, but fantastic business savvy branding guy, all that. So excited for them. And then we're doing something different this year from a marketing standpoint is we are doing a partnership on Thursday Night Football with Amazon Prime. And so we'll be running ads across those games as well as doing some social activation around it using our Move meter, which is a brand new feature on our website, compares the cost of living and a whole bunch of other factors between any two cities. So we'd be doing some move meter matchups, not only of the games that are on Thursday Night Football, but allowing our network to customize videos, social to do move meter matchups for any game that's happening across the country. So you live in a college town, and you want to do Clemson versus Florida State. Put the Tallahassee...