MAXA CEO James Wong & HousingWire’s Diego Sanchez on Exhibit Awards for Housing Brand Innovation

HousingWire

Behind every great housing company is a great brand. In this interview, MAXA Designs explains how the Exhibit Awards shine a spotlight on the creative teams elevating real estate and mortgage marketing. With new categories, an expanded judging panel, and national exposure through the new partnership with HousingWire, this year’s awards celebrate not just beautiful design — but the leadership, storytelling and innovation that define the housing industry’s next era.   #RealEstateMarketing #MortgageIndustry #BrandingAwards #MaxaDesigns

Transcript

00:00We are live from the George Bush Presidential Library here in Dallas, Texas, and I'm really

00:07excited to chat with James Wong, the CEO and founder of Maxa Designs. James, we're sitting

00:14down today to talk about the exhibit awards. Tell me a little bit about what those are and why you

00:20started doing them. Yeah, so I actually, this is a labor of love for me, you know, being in the

00:26industry for both real estate and mortgage for the last 13 years. I've gotten the chance

00:30to work with thousands of brands in real estate and mortgage and I see the marketing departments

00:36at these brands. Could be these national brands like Lower or Fairway or I think about Real

00:44and Realty One Group and all these different brands, they work so hard to curate a branded

00:50experience, whether they're nationwide or they're an independent in their local community. And

00:57I wanted to bring a spotlight to the work they're doing and how cohesive their branding is. So

01:04from the development of their brand, so the way it showcases in their communities, their

01:10websites, their digital marketing, and it turned into a competition where we brought in judges

01:16from all over the, of our community to now look at who has the best brand in the four

01:23regions of America. There's actually, this year with Housing Wire, we're doing 13 awards.

01:30We're doing eight awards in real estate and five awards in mortgage and I'm so excited to

01:34break it down with you. Yeah, me too. So you're kind of singing the praises of some of the unsung

01:41heroes of mortgage and real estate. Why did you want to do that? You know, I'm really passionate

01:46about design. I think design is my biggest background. I love design, but I also love

01:50leadership and I love business. And I think all of that comes together inside of one brand.

01:55And it's really unique. You can see how branding affects why an agent or a lender joins a brokerage.

02:04And that brand, you know, there's lots of surveys that have been done and probably the two biggest

02:09reasons why agents or lenders join a company is the relationship they have with leadership

02:15and the connection they feel with that brand in their community. So there hasn't really been

02:23a platform to showcase the branding that's done behind with the marketing departments with these

02:30companies. And so I wanted to put together this award. So we started actually in 2022.

02:35We started in real estate and this year I was like, it's time we bring in mortgage because I've

02:40been in mortgage for so long and I wanted to do it with housing wire. Why did you decide to really

02:46supersize this year? You already have clients in mortgage, but I think these awards were focused

02:51more on real estate in the past. Why did you decide to supersize this year and really bring in that

02:56mortgage component? Honestly, we have a big following. There's about 3000 people on the journey with

03:05us that watch these awards every year. And a lot of them are in mortgage and they kept messaging me

03:10saying, Hey, when are you going to do this for mortgage? We love branding as well. Every year

03:16our clients would say, we want to compete. We want to showcase our brands. And so I said, finally,

03:21it's time. 2025 was going to be the year we do it and we're going to lead it all up to the gathering.

03:27Yeah. Which I'm really excited about. And we'll talk about that in a minute. It sounds to me like

03:32you were pulled into doing this as opposed to pushing yourself. Correct. That's the best way

03:37to expand your business. It seems like to me. So, all right, we're going to do something a little

03:41different this year. This is your fourth year of doing these awards. We're expanding into mortgage

03:46and we're going to work together. So you mentioned the gathering, the gathering is housing wire,

03:51this event that brings together real estate executives with mortgage executives. So it's maybe

03:57the perfect fit for what you're trying to do with exhibit awards this year. Yes. And I want

04:01everyone who's following along to watch because we're going to go through this journey of

04:06all the brands that apply for their award. They're going to submit. We're going to provide them with

04:13a template on what to submit from their, how they tell their story, how they present their visual brand

04:23identity. And everyone's going to be following along from the applications to then getting to the

04:29semi-finalist to the top 20 brands in real estate and mortgage to the top five brands. And then we're

04:35going to pick a winner in each region. There's a West Coast, Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast winner

04:41for both real estate and mortgage. And then we have a competition between national brands. Brands that

04:48are national all across the nation that have offices and locations around the nation. They get to

04:53compete as well, whether they're in real estate or in mortgage. So how do you do the judging for

04:58this? Is this just you selecting the winners or how do you, how do you judge all these great entries?

05:04Yeah. So there's actually going to be a curated, there's probably going to be around 12 judges

05:09that will have a score points guideline where they're going to be scoring based on about eight

05:17different pieces of a brand from their, again, storytelling, their physical pieces, their office

05:24design, all kinds of really cool things we're going to look at, their websites. And so every judge is

05:30going to be giving points on every piece of their brand that we're going to bring them the top five.

05:36Then we're going to tally it all up and literally the winners will probably be winning by a few points.

05:43Hmm. So the better job that these marketing departments submit and present their brand,

05:49it's going to make the biggest difference when they, when we go for the winner.

05:54So are the judges like their peers? Are they marketers themselves? Or how do you,

05:58how do you pick the judges for this? Yeah, it's going to be a mix. It's going to be,

06:03mostly they're going to be influencers in the real estate and mortgage industry. You know,

06:08obviously I'll be a judge. We're going to have an amazing person from Housing Wire as a judge,

06:13but there's also going to be different influencers in real estate and mortgage that have been a part

06:17of the community that loves marketing, that loves design. We might have some CMOs as well

06:23from different brands. Obviously if they are a CMO and they submit, they won't be judging their own

06:29brand. They won't be judging themselves, but it's going to be a fun community effort. So amazing.

06:37That really sounds like a really interesting program that we're going to work on together this year.

06:41How are you thinking about this longterm? This will be your fourth year. Do you want to be doing it 10

06:49years from now? For sure. This is a labor of love where we do this every year because branding is

06:55kind of like music. It changes every year. And I think every company's brand should be alive and they

07:01should be evolving with what's happening in the, in the communities. And so I'm like a part of a lot of

07:09them too. Like I know a few brands this year that are launching their new identity. You know, people

07:14launch a new brand all the time. Think about when, look at Anywhere. And that just happened a year or

07:21two ago. You know, there's a few other brands I'm not going to say right now that are launching new

07:25brands. And so it's, it's pretty fun because all the effort they put in, we're going to put a spotlight on

07:31it. And all of us are going to get to see, we're going to highlight it on stage,

07:37how they came about bringing their brand together. I'm sensing, I mean, obviously there's the onstage

07:42component, but I feel like there's a social and sort of online component to this as well. Are people

07:48going to be able to follow along with the entries and who wins, you know, if, if they're not in the room

07:55at the gathering? Yes, exactly. So we'll be very, very, the most, uh, communication will happen

08:01via our newsletter, our email newsletter through both Maxa and Housing Wire. But then obviously

08:08we'll be creating content on our websites. We'll be writing about case studies about all the brands.

08:13And then we'll be of course posting on social and highlighting all the brands on, of course,

08:18like Instagram and LinkedIn. Well, James, I'm really excited about this partnership. I think

08:23the gathering is the perfect event to bring mortgage and real estate together.

08:28Thank you so much for talking with me today. Yeah, you're welcome.

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