Real estate developers using canny branding to lure address-conscious buyers

MUMBAI: If dress and address matter to you, real estate developers may not be able to do much about the former but they can sure give you an address that may make even the boondocks appear like New York's Fifth Avenue - at least on paper.

Consider: Cuffe Parade in south Mumbai is one of the most upmarket residential locations in the financial capital where apartments have changed hands for more than Rs 1 lakh per square foot. If you can't afford that price tag - few can -- you have an option: move into New Cuffe Parade where you can buy a home for just a little over Rs 15,000 per sq foot (although the price for an apartment still works out to over Rs 2 crore).

The only catch: New Cuffe Parade isn't exactly adjacent to the original address. In fact, you won't find it anywhere in south Mumbai-it's some 15 km into the city in a suburb called Wadala, parts of which are covered by salt pans.

Real estate developers are resorting to such canny branding to lure address-conscious buyers. The Lodha group is developing the New Cuffe Parade project of two-bedroom and three-bedroom hall, kitchen apartments.

Says R Karthik, chief marketing officer, Lodha Group: "New Cuffe Parade bears a striking resemblance to its roots in Cuffe Parade in terms of size, creator and type of development. Both developments are roughly 20 acres, created by nodal government agencies and are mixed use developments. We take this approach for only select marquee developments that take inspiration and are similar to landmarks that change the face of the city." He adds that since real estate is a "long-term, futuristic product category, a name gives our customers a visual representation of what the development envisions and gives it a unique identity."

Elsewhere, builders are associating imagery of international locations with their projects. For instance, Nitesh Napa Valley isn't anywhere near California but off Bellary Road in North Bangalore. Central Park of Manhattan fame is now a project in Gurgaon, and Hyde Park has moved from central London to Khargar, a distant Mumbai suburb.

"Customers are not paying a premium just for the project's name, but for imagery, architecture and finishing they expect from such an association. In most cases, the promised theme or lifestyle remains only in the marketing brochures, while execution remains a key concern area," said Samarjit Singh, MD of IndiaHomes.

Rechristening old-world locations with fancier names isn't exactly a new trend; the bush-league Lower Parel in Mumbai, for instance, is now fashionably known as Upper Worli. Of late, however, developers have begun resorting more frequently to this ruse in a trying market. So much so that on-the-ball real estate agents in the distant Mumbai western suburb of Kandivili have used creative licence to anglicise it to Candy Valley.

The only problem: like Candy Valley, many of these inspired addresses are not valid ones. "There are Beverly Hills and Valencias in almost all major cities now, but just because of these names the project is not likely to get any premium. These are aspirations and dreams being sold," says Lalit Kumar Jain, national president, CREDAI. There cannot be any restriction on any such usage unless there is any trademark or copyright issue, he adds.

"This is like hiring a great brand ambassador without actually hiring one; the brand name itself is doing that job for you," says Harish Bijoor, business strategy specialist and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults.

Source : articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com