There has been a long discussion taking place all day on FB as a result of Zillow announcing they are facilitating a live Q&A with President Obama on Wednesday to discuss housing. The fact that NAR is not the facilitator of this was brought up, which brought the NAR vs Zillow debate upon us. From the TurnOn! FB group:

Okay, let’s try this – a little challenge similar to the sorts of challenges I encountered in college marketing classes:

You are part of Nobu’s marketing team.
You are given the following seemingly impossible assignment.

Come up with 3 marketing and promotional strategies that changes the consumer discussion.

You have a budget of $6,000,000. approximately half of the burn rate to run RPR.

The mission: Alter the public’s perception of Realtors and make NAR the voice of real estate in the eyes of the public.

Go…

Here goes nothing…

1. Scour the entire country – and find the most passionate, smart, and camera ready agents and brokers in the top 25 markets. Put them on local TV spots, give them resources to build relationships with local media, redo their websites to be best in class, and provide them extensive media training. Make them the local data experts. Krisstina Wise would make a great first choice because she actually gives a damn. Showcase her on national TV spots, and turn her into the face of the industry.
2. Revoke the licenses of the bottom 10% of agents every single year. Make NAR stand for excellence, rather than mediocrity (or worse).
3. Put massive resources into building a website devoted to helping consumers find the absolute best agents, based on experience and real production numbers – all findable from for one destination for every market in the country. Or buy HomeLight as a starting point. The best agents should get more business funneled to them, and the worst should be shown the door.

The focus of all three strategies is making NAR and the Realtor brand mean something to consumers. If NAR doesn’t do something along these lines, independent agents/brokers are going to end up creating something that does mean something; perhaps something like this.

Your turn. What would you do?

PS: For the record, I don’t think NAR can beat Zillow at this game.

[Update: additional reading at Vendor Alley and Inman]