Celebrity endorsement – The ‘it’ thing in real estate

Now we’ve all seen Moammar Rana, the devastatingly handsome Lollywood star, dazzling the viewers in the television commercial of Gulberg Greens, haven’t we? Zara Sheikh, our famous supermodel, has also been selling villas (or trying to) in Lake City Lahore. Lucky Ali, the not so lucky singer (who couldn’t sing to save his life) turned actor (but failed at that too), has now launched his own housing project (let’s hope he does not fail there). By all these examples, what I am trying to get at is the trend ofcelebrity endorsement which seems to be the ‘it’ thing these days.

I am sure many of you would already know that Zameen too has been endorsed by Emmad Irfani. Well, he did a photo shoot for us. His gorgeous face has taken a part of all the billboards of Zameen erected around Lahore. The one simple reason behind getting a celebrity to grace the boards of the site was to earn brand recognition. Zameen.com has been in the business for many years now and sure, all estate agents do know what we are all about but the purpose behind hiring Emmad Irfani to model for us was to try and become a household name.

Celebrity endorsements serve a lot of purposes. For the developments and new projects, it’s an instant way of grabbing the attention of prospective buyers. Oh sure Ali Zafar would do an advertisement for XYZ community but we all know where he would prefer to live (hint: the community’s name where he already lives starts with a D but shush, you didn’t hear it from me).

Many brands use celebrities in their campaigns to build trust and earn credibility. Models and movie stars, being the divas they are, can hardly be mistaken for people who would settle for something less than the best. So whenever they appear in, let’s say, a shampoo ad, people automatically assume it must be a quality product. That’s the psyche of the people. Fortunately though, it does not apply to any of the above mentioned cases since they’re pure real estate oriented.

Anyway, tell us what you think of the new board? Love it, hate it? Feel free to share your opinions. All comments are welcome.