Real Estate Case Study: Security Captical Pacific Trust1. The lack of branding in SCPT? There are several reasons for the traditional lack of branding in the real estate sector. One of the most important reasons is that the real estate sector has been considered a commercial activity for hundreds of years; the main focus was on ownership and therefore the product was seen only as a tangible aspect and not as a customer aspect. For example, SCPT did not even know who its customers were (Fournier & Thorp, 2001). There was almost no information on their core customer segments, the main factors determining customer choice, preference and satisfaction. Furthermore, branding is considered a natural process, which means that special attention to it 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. Real estate companies can therefore be seen as financial organizations, in which it is difficult to form an idea and a feeling. These are essential for positioning a brand and creating a certain brand image in the mind of the consumer. Additionally, 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 the creation of a brand strategy, these ESPs are the most 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 use of USP only, this objective of defining a certain brand image will be almost in the middle of paper....... To achieve this, SCPT must focus on the relationship and level of personal identification that its customers have with the brand. When SCPT realizes this, its customers are willing to invest time, energy, money or other resources in the brand (Keller, 2001).ReferencesFornier, S. & Thorp, S. ( 2001) “Security Capital Pacific Trust: A Case for Branding.” Harvard Business School: pp. 1-30. Keller (1999) “Brand Mantras: Justification, 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. Pelsmacker De, P., Geuens, M. & Van den Bergh, J. (2004) “A European Perspective”. Journal of Marketing Communications. Pearson Education Limited, p... 185.