marketing 201 / sun and clouds out of alignment at 236 W 26
how not to sell a sun-drenched loft
The new listing from Corcoran for #601 at The Capital Building, 236 W 26 St, caught my eye this morning, since I was recently in the building to see the unit directly upstairs and it is always interesting to see multiple units in the same line in a loft building (a la the D Sale at 55 Hudson St — Tribeca trifecta on the market / if you need a "D", 55 Hudson is for sale).
But what first caught my eye is the disconnect between the first word in the listing and the first picture on the website. (Either I am screwing up the formatting or Corcoran is blocking my ability to cut-and-paste photos from their website. Click on the listing info above to get the pictures.) How many people will look at the first photo and think "sun-drenched"??
Picture #3 is even worse.
windows, windows, windows, and windows
Which is a shame because the unit is sun drenched. Compare the floor plan to the pix and you will see that nearly all of two walls in the 35×17 foot LR are windows, facing south (35′) and west (17′) well above nearby roof lines.
Having recently been in (different Corcoran agents) The Smiling Blumsteins’ listing upstairs in #701 I know that this is a "sunglasses" loft — when the winter sun is low it is very bright here. So the #601 marketing reflects (no pun intended) the learning of Marketing 101 by addressing right off one of the key distinguishing features of this loft: it is more "sun drenched" than just about every other Manhattan loft on the market. (BTW, #701 is a combined loft extending to the east past the bedroom in #601, totaling 2700 sq ft, and is a beautiful loft. Open House Sunday noon – 1:30)
out of alignment
But Marketing 201 teaches that all marketing efforts must align. It is hard to sell a sun drenched loft to uninformed buyers by taking pictures on a cloudy day.
Bad luck to have a cloudy day. This will not be a big problem for buyers with agents who know the building — because the floor plan alone will tell them that the sun drenches — but how many such agents are there? It is classic bad marketing not to re-take your pictures to align with the objective facts — especially if you lead your marketing with one objective fact.
as long as I have my knife out…
And another thing, while I am in a (hyper?) critical mood. In addition to the "gorgeous light from south and west windows" being contradicted by the marketing photos, the "open professional chef’s kitchen" is essentially AWOL. Look again at Picture #3. I assume that really is an "open professional chef’s kitchen" at the end of that loooong vista, but does that photo strike you as an "open professional chef’s kitchen". Not to me, it doesn’t.
The agents with #601 are experienced downtown agents who appear to be successful. Let’s see if they re-take the pictures.
© Sandy Mattingly 2006
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