On March 14th, nearly one year after assuming the role, Charlie Young, president, and chief executive officer of ERA Franchise Systems LLC, addressed over 2,000 of his network’s members at their annual convention to reveal the first of several planned phases to reveal the brand’s new direction. Mr. Young had ascended to the top post under less-than-ideal circumstances; his predecessor, Brenda Casserly, had passed away only two months after he was brought aboard ERA as its chief operating officer. She had been the warm and spirited face of the brand for eight years before tragically succumbing to cancer.

“Out of adversity, comes opportunity,” was how Alex Perriello, president and chief executive officer of Realogy Franchise Group, described these difficult beginnings. To add to the challenge, ERA was suffering from a bit of an identity crisis. Its four sister brands within Realogy were either much larger, as with Coldwell Banker and Century 21, had a clearly-defined niche audience, such as Sotheby’s International Realty, or had the excitement of being new, like Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. There were times, it seemed, that ERA’s story was being drowned out even within its own building.

In speaking with Mr. Young, the words he uses reflect a desire to leverage what they feel is an especially collaborative network of brokers and be a more active participant in the broader conversation. He speaks often of wanting to ensure the brand has relevance, “a voice” in the industry, and of being “on the front edge rather than the trailing edge.”

So last summer, Mr. Young hit the road; he spent much of his time visiting with and listening to his people and learned of their fondness for the brand. He formed an advisory council of owners from about twenty top affiliates and embraced a spirit of bottom-up collaboration to shape every major decision that ERA was to undertake. Mr. Young said Mr. Perriello, “used his advisory council very effectively to reposition and recreate” the brand and to “involve brokers in the process.”

Those involved noticed the transparency and responded favorably. Gus Grizzard, who owns ERA Tom Grizzard REALTORS® in Florida, was part of the council. He cited his admiration of Mr. Young’s accessibility and willingness to listen. Or, as Robyn Erlenbush, owner of ERA Landmark Real Estate in Montana, described it, the corporate staff now “trusts the brokers’ sense of the market” and is responsive to suggestions. Through the simple act of conversation, a “smarter community,” as ERA describes it, took shape.

Clearly, there is work to be done and the goodwill that has been generated could soon disappear if tangible improvements to clearly differentiate the brand’s brokers and agents aren’t delivered. As Ms. Erlenbush pointed out, “Consumers have less patience and are more demanding, and deservedly so. They won’t tolerate second-class service.”

For all the warmth that comes with a feeling of cooperation and community, the brand’s success may indeed rest with the tools and systems that it will need to build, in addition to both a distinguishing consumer Web site and intranet. Much of this is still in the early stages of its evolution. Mr. Young states that the Web site will need to “add value to the consumer experience” and “avoid presenting listings as commodities.” A revision of the intranet was presented to ERA’s members at the conference and awaits their feedback. At this moment at least, the promises of what will come outweigh the new products that have been put in place.

Much of what ERA aims to deliver will be built around the collaborative spirit that the brand feels is critical to its success. In researching other brands, Anne Blumenstein, ERA’s vice president of marketing, admired the Web sites of Best Buy and Dell, which embrace involvement from employees and consumers, and the clear direction and brand identity of Starbucks and Zappos, which, in Ms. Blumenstein’s words, create a “gotta have it” loyalty from consumers that ERA hopes to create.

It is refreshing to see any company engage in a blunt assessment of its prior shortcomings and discuss them openly and honestly. “We were mired in a sea of sameness,” said Ms. Blumenstein. However, the reality is that ERA is staring at a large uphill climb to gain ground on its competitors. As Mr. Young and Ms. Blumenstein know, an impassioned brand rebirth will only yield long-term success if the final product pleases consumers’ palates.

There are some optimistic signs; in February, the brand announced the signing of The Herman Group, a thousand-agent company with operations in Colorado and Florida that ERA hopes will be the first of several new firms to agree with the new direction. Mr. Young said that “the large deal pipeline” was “very good” and that other announcements may follow.

What the addition of ERA Herman Group Real Estate also indicates is the brand’s embrace of what it calls an “open platform.” This term was used often when speaking with ERA’s leadership. To Mr. Young, it means “an openness to any operating model” while to Ms. Blumenstein it is indicative of “organic branding from the bottom up.” Perhaps most telling, to Ms. Erlenbush it means “an esprit de corps that spreads messaging out to the entire network.”

The brand is engaging its own people to help tell its story. ERA’s advantage is that it is not fighting to rebuild a damaged reputation; in many ways, it is still trying, nearly forty years after its founding, to express that identity. If the collaborative, “open platform” direction it has embarked upon is any indication, it will be its “smarter community” that defines what that identity will be. And should a national real estate brand built and managed with active participation from its own members actually thrive, then, with that alone, ERA would have the differentiator it has so long sought.
 

written by Nicolai Kolding, associate editor

courtesy Real Trends