In case you’ve been living under a rock recently, you’ve surely seen the industry hysteria that took place this week—better known as “logogate.”
It all started when NAR CEO Bob Goldberg teased on his Linkedin account that The National Association of REALTORS had something big to announce. It’s safe to say that many people were eagerly anticipating the ‘brand evolution’ on April 9. It seems the reveal shook those who were looking for a larger deviation from the original brand, but were greeted with a pretty similar logo and the removal of the word REALTOR.
There have been many articles written over the past week and many comments shared on social media about the redesign. NAR says they received a mix of, “strong support to outright disapproval,” and we can attest to that just from the response we have seen. The comments ranged from those who loved the 3-D look to those who absolutely hated it to those who didn’t think the redesign mattered at all.
In Notorious R.O.B’s article, Forest for the Trees: the NAR #Logogate Edition, he stated that removing “REALTOR” most likely won’t affect our industry the way we think it will, “Consumers don’t care about the logo; there is no brand recognition and no advantage to having the Big Blue R in whatever box on your business card, and no disadvantage in not having it there.”
Even though NAR received mixed reviews since the announcement, on Wednesday they decided to pause the brand rollout and gather more input.
“As we tried to reimagine our REALTOR® R, we thought about the people behind the brand—the human beings who are making the real estate transaction happen,” said Goldberg of the revamp at the time. “Consumers trust our members and our brand represents trust. We don’t ever want to lose sight of the fact that the human factor makes the brand what it is.”
CEO Bob Goldberg and President Elizabeth Mendenhall’s official full statement to its members:
Since we announced the brand evolution and logo redesign, we have received a diversity of opinions that ranged from strong support to outright disapproval. Please know how much we appreciate member input and how seriously we take your feedback.
While the issues that drove this process to evaluate and ultimately evolve the REALTOR® logo still exist, we are pausing its implementation. This extra time will allow us to further examine the enhancement of the REALTOR® brand proposition, including the logo, which means so much to you and your business.
We are a member-centric organization and this decision to postpone the brand transformation demonstrates that your national association is listening.
This journey began in earnest in 2016 from a Presidential Advisory Group on choosing real estate as a first career. The number one directive of the PAG was that NAR should expand, modernize, and elevate the REALTOR® brand.
The process continued in 2017 when a Sounding Board of members, the Leadership Team, and NAR Staff engaged a brand design group to create a new brand proposition and logo. Throughout the year, qualitative and quantitative research was conducted with consumers and members about the current brand and potential brand updates.
This was a thoughtful, deliberate, and comprehensive process with input from many diverse viewpoints. We were very excited to share the new brand with our members. But we are also mindful that an association with 1.3 million members has 1.3 million opinions, especially about an identity that represents our commitment to our clients.
For that reason, let’s all take a deep breath. Let’s take a pause on the brand roll out. Let’s gather more input.
Sincerely,
The NAR Leadership Team
We’ll all take a deep breath as we eagerly await brand logo roll out 3.0!