00:00I want all of the details. I want all of the information. Are you ready?
00:04Super ready.
00:09I'm Alison LaForgia, and I am getting the inside scoop on the Exhibit Awards
00:14with James Wong, who is the CEO and founder of Maxa Designs,
00:19who is the brain behind the Exhibit Awards.
00:23So we're going to pick your brain. We're going to get the inside scoop.
00:26So the Exhibit Awards ecosystem was built on the idea that branding is more than aesthetics.
00:32It's business infrastructure.
00:34From your perspective, how do you define strong branding and housing,
00:39and what is its importance today?
00:42Wow. Big first question.
00:44Big first question.
00:44Big first question. Gosh.
00:46Okay, so you'll see in Exhibit, actually, the idea, when we created this four years ago,
00:52and now we've had, again, 400 of the biggest brands in real estate and mortgage.
00:57Specifically, you know, this year we did mostly more as new for mortgage,
01:00but in real estate, I mean, every single big brand you can think of has competed for this award.
01:05Your website's stacked.
01:07Yeah, it's stacked.
01:08And what's neat is, if you think about the criteria that we're judging on,
01:14that is actually what is good branding.
01:17So we look at, there's six.
01:20There's storytelling, which, if you think about it,
01:24there's usually three attributes to storytelling.
01:27There's the functional, hey, how do you do things better than your competition as a brand?
01:36It could be on a recruiting basis, or it could be a consumer basis.
01:40Well, how are you doing things better functionally?
01:41Then there's a storytelling of emotionally.
01:45There's an emotional attribute of how do you connect to this brand?
01:48Like, how are you presenting this brand that I'm emotionally touched by this brand?
01:52And this is a really emotional transaction,
01:55whether you're on the real estate side or you're on the mortgage side.
01:58Buying a house can be a very emotional process for everyone involved.
02:02So you need to have deep trust with your partners in that transaction,
02:07which is critical.
02:08And how they find you is entirely rooted in branding.
02:12100%.
02:13And then the third piece is the social kind of validation piece as well.
02:19And it's like, okay, well, how are you designing your brand to socially
02:23be a part and engage with the community that you want to serve?
02:28Right?
02:28So we're looking at all those big three things.
02:31And then how well is it executed across all the channels available to you?
02:37Right?
02:38This could be print, social, your office design space, your website, of course,
02:43your video marketing, the way you engage your communities, your community outreach.
02:47We're looking at all those pieces are actually judged.
02:51But we do it because when people follow along to the story, they actually learn like,
02:56okay, so this is the things that are needed to build an incredible brand.
03:03It's such an important part of visual grammar, not just for internal teams, but for external teams.
03:11And I think it's something that's so undervalued, which is why I love the idea that the exhibit awards were
03:18created
03:18to really highlight what can be often unseen work from marketing and leadership teams
03:25that shape the brokerage and lender identities.
03:30So what patterns do you see for the companies that are consistently standing out as award winners?
03:37So I always like to see it, and there's like two phases of it.
03:41Phase one is like, okay, the marketing team is extremely passionate and they execute really well.
03:48Right?
03:49It's not like, hey, just stick a logo on the top right of something.
03:52Right?
03:53They're like truly thinking about multiple elements of their brand.
03:56Because like every brand is not a logo, right?
03:59It's like you get to consider the color palette, but then there's like visual elements.
04:04Then there's imagery, there's photography, there's aesthetics.
04:06That all has to come together really well.
04:08The whole visual grammar that is presented consistently from piece one to piece Z.
04:13I call it a visual architecture, right?
04:15Or a visual system.
04:16But then what happens though is like how consistent are you that eventually the brand becomes a world?
04:24And that's what I was talking about on stage today.
04:26I was like, I want the best brands.
04:29When you see the brand, it's a world.
04:31It's like Disneyland, right?
04:33You walk into Disney World or Disneyland, you see the Disney brand, you know you're about to walk into a
04:38universe.
04:38That's all Disney.
04:39And what does Disney stand for?
04:41The happiest place on earth.
04:42Happiest place on earth.
04:43How do we all know that?
04:45Because that's how well consistent.
04:47It's ingrained in their branding.
04:48And I love that increasingly when you see visuals from brands like Disney, they don't need to put what the
04:54brand is.
04:55You can tell by how things are structured, the font that they use, the background imagery.
05:02You can see something without it saying that specific brand and you know immediately where it is.
05:08That's where you find the creme de la creme of branding.
05:11The submissions are so thorough.
05:14I mean, these are submissions like people spend 20 hours, 30 hours on a proper presentation.
05:19It's a 50-page keynote on why they should win the best brand for this exhibit award.
05:26And when you see the submission, it is a world.
05:30It is an incredible world.
05:32I see the most insane art installations with the brand where they're blending their colors and their lifestyle
05:38and their mission statement and their values all inside of one incredible world.
05:44And so that's how I would define it for sure.
05:47I think that that's amazing.
05:48And I love the idea that we're giving credit to the people who are really thinking about that strategically.
05:54So I want to dig in a little bit to some of the winners that we've seen this year.
05:58And there's been an interesting shift to me in that we're seeing some smaller firms really competing directly with enterprise
06:06brands.
06:07And I think it's fantastic.
06:10When you have this smaller firm competing with an enterprise brand, what do you think the smaller companies are doing
06:18better when it comes to building a brand?
06:21People who are passionate about brand building.
06:25And you see it's so clear with mortgage and real estate.
06:28You know, I get the privilege of working with 250 mortgage and real estate brands right now.
06:33Literally, they're with us every day.
06:37We spend every week with them.
06:38And the ones that are the most passionate, they find every detail to brand everything.
06:44Any chance they can get to brand it, they brand it.
06:47And so like these independents, which in real estate, I don't know if you know this, but 51% of
06:52or we've already crossed it where more than 51% of agents hang their license with an independent, like of
06:59the entire country.
07:00They're not with the big brands anymore.
07:02So like if you think about it, why do more agents hang their license with the independents?
07:09It's because the independents focus on the brand very well inside of their community where it's kind of like you
07:16and me, right?
07:16You live in Charlotte.
07:18I live in L.A.
07:19There's a particular shoe brand, right?
07:21I love your shoes.
07:23Like you're connected because they're probably a brand for Charlotte.
07:27Just like I wear certain things that's very connected to L.A.
07:30And the good independent brands do that very well.
07:34They're very specific on how they connect to their community versus I would say the bigger brands, even though they
07:41do some amazing work as well.
07:42I mean, I'm seeing campaigns that, you know, some of our partners like Zillow Mortgage and Realtor.com and Real,
07:49like they're doing some incredible stuff too.
07:52Like insane.
07:52I'm super impressed.
07:54It's just different, right?
07:55Right.
07:55You know, these CMOs, they have to work harder because there's more people, right?
08:00When Real is dealing with 40,000 agents, it's a lot harder to reach all of them and get that
08:05connection versus an independent with 100 agents.
08:08So they have to do a lot of what they do actually is a lot of mini activations.
08:15And in those, they actually, they have mini leaders, they're not mini actually, they're great leaders, they're local leaders that
08:23are then pushing their own brand as well within that community, sorry, within that region.
08:28And it becomes hyper recognizable.
08:30And it goes all the way back up to the top.
08:31Right.
08:32I think that that's such a great point.
08:35And it's something that there's a tendency to almost treat marketing and branding as a deliverable instead of as a
08:45leadership strategy.
08:47Where do you see leadership responsibility beginning and ending when it comes to shaping a company's brand?
08:56Wow, you know, a lot of incredible, you know, entrepreneurs have always said the leadership or the founder, because there's
09:04a lot of founders, broker owners, their DNA is always going to be a part of that company, right?
09:13And so if you think about the leader or the founder's DNA, like who they are, who he or she
09:18is, it shows up that person's personal passion, vision, values, it shows up kind of naturally within the company.
09:27I was sharing earlier, this was gosh, like 10 years ago, because I've been doing branding for 13 years now.
09:34And I remember we did a national survey, we got thousands of people to participate.
09:40And why they chose to move their, move to a different company, whether it was real estate or mortgage, why
09:47did they move?
09:48And I, you know, I shared this earlier, but it's like number one reason was the, everyone chose, it was
09:53the relationship that they had with that leader.
09:56Just like the personal relationship, like I really like this branch manager, or I really like this broker owner.
10:02But the second reason that they chose, it wasn't the tech, it wasn't the, I can help you build your
10:08team.
10:08It wasn't the education.
10:10It actually, the second reason was they love the brand within the community.
10:15So when you think about it, it actually, when the survey happened, I was like, okay, guys.
10:20This is incredible.
10:21Like, it starts from the very beginning, and then it's a full cycle evolution.
10:26It never ends, right?
10:27I'm so impressed.
10:28There's companies like HomeSmart that just finally rebranded, not, like, and they're so excited about it, right?
10:34Long and Foster just rebranded.
10:37They've completed it this year.
10:39But these companies are 25 plus year companies.
10:41Yeah.
10:42And they're still evolving their brand, still rebranding constantly.
10:46So it's pretty neat to see the evolution.
10:48It never ends, but it definitely starts with branding.
10:52On that note, looking ahead, as mortgage and real estate continue to converge and competition intensifies,
11:00what does the next generation of award-winning branding look like?
11:04And what will separate brands that last from ones that fade?
11:09Give us a scoop.
11:10We're getting all the answers for you guys.
11:12And, again, I told all the submissions, you know, we get a lot of submissions, you know.
11:17It's an incredible amount of hundreds of brands want to compete for this award.
11:21It's pretty neat.
11:22Per year.
11:23Yeah.
11:23And when they come to me, you know, I get some bummer text messages when they don't, they're not a
11:29finalist or they're not the winner.
11:31There's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that go into it.
11:33Yeah.
11:33They're super passionate.
11:34And, you know, they go, like, what happened?
11:36And I go, you know, there's 10 judges.
11:38The most you can score is, I believe, 300 points.
11:42Some people scored 268, which is probably a very high score.
11:46And some scored, like, 100.
11:48Right?
11:49And so, again, we're looking at all six criterias.
11:52And a lot of times, and I'll just be frank, I think the marketing, whoever submitted that got a lower
11:58score, there's, like, two missing pieces.
12:01One, they didn't submit all of everything.
12:05For some reason, they decided to submit half the things and not all the things they need to win.
12:10And then the second piece is, a lot of times, again, they're not very consistent with their execution.
12:15So, I see a lot of, like, okay, so you decided to use these colors for this channel or this
12:22type of print work, but then you decided to use this other set of colors and it wasn't consistent.
12:28Well, it goes back to what you were saying earlier, where it's really holistic vision between text, colors, graphics, photography,
12:39imagery, holistic approach, narrative, storytelling, and execution.
12:44100%.
12:44So, if you're missing any of those pieces, it's a pretty critical deficit.
12:48100%.
12:49And what I'm going to do this year that's going to be really special is I'm going to actually get
12:54a lot of the great submissions permission to put it online on the exhibitawards.com website.
13:02So, people can go and see, like, what does the submission, a good submission look like.
13:07What did it look like?
13:07And they're going to learn of, like, what, wow, how big you can, how deep you can go with branding
13:13in general.
13:13It's one of those things that I feel like once you start, you just continue finding more and more opportunities.
13:21And it's a continual, to your point earlier, evolving journey.
13:25It's something that happens at the beginning and then continues to evolve.
13:28You mentioned brands that have been around for 25 years or longer.
13:32And they're continuing to hyper-focus on this as a critical business strategy.
13:37Zillow just redid their brand last year, too.
13:39Like, you know, it's amazing to watch them constantly.
13:42Because it's, like, to me, and I love it, it's such an easy way to understand branding, too.
13:46It's, like, brand design is like music.
13:49And the trends with music change every year.
13:52Right.
13:53People like different things every year.
13:54And so, if you're producing music or producing a brand and you're not paying attention to where we're going as
14:02a culture or as all the trends are, then you become irrelevant.
14:06Right?
14:06And so, what happens when you become irrelevant?
14:08The impact is insane.
14:09Right?
14:10These, what, have we seen, oh, gosh, I wish I remember this, the number.
14:16But I know that there's something around over 100,000 agents, I don't know on the lender side, change their,
14:25where they, where they, you know, hang their license with per year.
14:29Like, yeah, those 100,000 people are changing to a relevant brand, not an irrelevant brand.
14:34So, if you think about it, how well do you make, continue to keep yourself relevant is really important.
14:39Nobody's going to someone less notable.
14:41Exactly.
14:42Nobody's going to someone less notable.
14:43So, James, thank you so much for giving me the inside scoop.
14:47Congratulations to this year's exhibit awards winners.
14:50And we can't wait to see next year's applicants.
14:53Heck, yeah.
14:54Yeah.
14:55Yeah.
14:58Yeah.
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