FaceForward™ Ads insert the local agent or loan officer into digital or TV ads being run by a firm – highlighting to the consumer that they will be serviced by an actual human on one of the largest transactions of their life.
2020 saw more eyes on screens than ever before, thanks to stay at home orders and remote work. But the move to virtual life created challenges for industries where business is built on person-to-person relationships, and where trust is critical, like the real estate and mortgage industries. Savvy companies began to seek out new ways to create that human connection between their brand and the consumer in a digital-only environment.
Jed Carlson, CEO of Adwerx, a leading provider of hyperlocal, personalized, and custom automated advertising services, predicts that 2021 will be the year of Face-Forward™ Advertising. Carlson explains, “FaceForward™ Advertising is grounded in a really simple idea: Putting a ‘local’ face on your brand creates trust, affinity, and ultimately improved outcomes for your producers who are out selling. If you are in a business built on relationship sales, your people ARE the product. But until recently, it’s been impossible to advertise that product at scale.”
Carlson reached out to two leaders of the Face-Forward™ movement to learn more about how they plan to humanize their producers in today’s digital first world. He identified companies who are finding creative ways to differentiate their producers in a crowded market, and who put a strategic focus on helping their producers build lifelong relationships.
“When we first heard about the FaceForward™ Advertising concept, we jumped on it,” said Wendy Durand, Vice President of Global Marketing & Communications at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. “Our network represents customers contemplating one of the largest transactions of their life, and they need to know that there is a real person that will be taking care of them. It’s all about trust.”
The way FaceForward™ Advertising works is by merging in personalized data and images of the ‘local’ company representative into the brand advertising for the firm. The result is that every representative is being personally advertised in their market automatically.
Durand continued, “we encourage our network agents to create personalized interactions with every customer and prospect, and let them know that FaceForward™ is the way to go in 2021 and beyond. Mass personalization wasn’t something historically available at scale, but thanks to Adwerx we’ve found a solution that puts a face on every listing ad, brand ad and streaming TV ad our network agents run. Plus, it’s all targeted to their local markets, making it even more effective.”
FaceForward™ Ads get more noticed than traditional brand ads, too. A study on the effects of face images on consumers’ responses to print advertising revealed that ads featuring a person’s face attracted 11 times more attention than non-face ads, with the effect being even greater in scenarios where the exposure time is short (such as an ad on the internet or social media). Using the Face-Forward™ Advertising Method, advertisers increase the likelihood that an ad will get noticed.
Sample brand ad vs. FaceForward™ ad
Guaranteed Rate Companies Chief Marketing Officer Steve Moffat highlighted how 2020 shifted their business and began offering FaceForward™ advertising to their loan officers. “The pandemic changed the focus on how relationship-based companies like ours communicate. Our producers relied on video platforms and social media to stay connected with their clients who were spending more time at home. I believe the most successful firms in our industry are connecting with prospective clients in one-on-one interactions as best they can. Consumers want to see the human behind the transaction, making a FaceForward™ approach to our digital ad efforts a critical component to our strategy.”
Digital advertising is a marketing channel that satisfies both leadership and producer objectives by helping individuals scale efficiency and productivity, while also continuing to develop the overall reach of the firm’s brand. Using a service like Adwerx makes FaceForward™ digital and streaming TV advertising easy to set up, implement, and track, while giving innovative firms the ability to implement best practices at scale.
About Adwerx
Used by over 25% of the top brokerage firms and over 15% of the top mortgage originators in the U.S., Adwerx delivers personalized, omnichannel brand marketing and automation at enterprise scale. Adwerx customers are able to deliver customized ads, personalized for every producer in the Enterprise, programmatically across streaming TV, popular websites, Facebook and Instagram, and mobile apps, while driving growth through digital marketing automation that increases brand visibility, boosts productivity by 35 percent and reduces turnover by 42 percent.
Adwerx works across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Learn more about Brilliantly Simple Digital Advertising at adwerx.com.
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