Real Estate Case Study: Security Captical Pacific Trust1. The lack of branding in SCPT? There are several reasons that explain the traditional lack of branding in the real estate sector. One of the most important reasons is that real estate has been seen as a commodity business for hundreds of years; the main focus was on the property and therefore the product was considered only as a tangible aspect and was not about the customer. For example, SCPT did not even know who its customers were (Fournier & Thorp, 2001). There was almost no information on key customer segments, the key drivers of customer choice, preferences and satisfaction. Furthermore, branding is seen as a natural process, which requires special attention to branding is not necessary. Furthermore, because competitors do not focus on branding and organizations tend to imitate each other (Levitt and March, 1988), branding seems less important. Therefore, real estate businesses can be seen as financial organizations, in which it is difficult to find a look and feel. These are essential to position a brand and create a certain brand image in the consumer's mind. Furthermore, this look and feel is necessary to create a clear brand identity and purpose in the employee's mind. By focusing primarily on the tangible aspect itself, unique selling points (USPs) can be communicated clearly, while emotional selling points (ESPs) are often forgotten. For creating a branding strategy, these ESPs are very important (De Pelsmacker et al., 2004). With the addition of emotional aspects, the consumer will experience a certain feeling or emotion towards the brand and its products, while with the exclusive use of USPs, the goal of establishing a certain brand image will be almost... at paper center....... To accomplish this, SCPT should focus on the relationship and level of personal identification its customers have with the brand. When SCPT realizes this, its customers are willing to invest time, energy, money, or other resources into the brand (Keller, 2001). References Fornier, S. & Thorp, S. (2001) “Security Capital Pacific Trust: A Case for Branding." Harvard Business School: pp. 1-30. Keller (1999) "Branding Mantras: Rationale, Criteria, and Examples ", Journal of Marketing Management, 15: pp. 43-51. Keller (2001) "Building Customer-Based Brand Equity", Marketing Management, 10: pp. 15-19. Levitt, B., March, J.G., (1988 ). “Organization Learning”, Annual Review of Sociology, 14: pp. 319-340 marketing . Pearson Education Limited, pp. 185.