Vancouver is the second-worst city in the world if you want to buy a house (1). The median home price of over $600,000 is 9.5 times the average gross annual household income, a multiple that is only exceeded by the Hong Kong housing market. Naturally, the extreme prices are inevitably destined to stabilize and fall once the boom is over. Facts such as that the average price for a detached home in West Vancouver peaked in May last year and has since declined by more than 11% (2) signalize an upcoming stabilization or even recession in the housing market.

Average Prices for Vancouver’s real estate market divisions until December 2011

But a profitable market is not easily given up and some people attempt drastic methods in order to keep the price high: A recent CTV news report showed Chinese women who claimed they were sisters looking for real estate, funded by their parents. As it turned out a few days later, those women were neither sisters nor were they intending a purchase: They were actually two Marketing associates who were assigned by “MAC Marketing” in order to deceive potential Chinese investors into thinking that demand from China is still as high as it had always been. The entire marketing lie backfired and MAC’s CEO Cameron McNeill resigned.

Linking back to my previous blog post about the credibility and honesty in modern marketing, this shows how important it is in nowadays world to be aware of the audience’s possibilities to check everything on credibility. As can be seen in the embedded video above, this bogus was found out after someone revealed the two women’s true identity by checking their LinkedIn profile (4). Such a substantial flaw in detail did cost the CEO his job and further damaged BC’s real estate industry’s reputation (2). When a marketing firm such as MAC Marketing tries to appeal to a target segment, in this case investors from Hong Kong and China, it is essential to keep in mind the risks they are facing. Credible statements that can be supported by facts is an essential foundation to customer loyalty and sustainable marketing relations. In this case, the news spread quickly over to their potential customers in Hong Kong and is likely to have damaged Vancouver’s real estate market’s reputation with an incalculatable financial impact on the market overall (3).

“[…]it will take time, we hope that we can earn back our good reputation and your trust. This situation has been difficult for everyone and as a company, we will learn from this[…]”, says McNeill when confronted with his company’s heavily criticized marketing bogus (3).

Once the trust is broken, it is almost impossible to win it back even if everything that follows is truthful. After all, they may as well just have gotten better at lying.

Sources

1) http://business.financialpost.com/2013/01/22/vancouver-ranked-second-least-affordable-housing-market-in-the-world/?__lsa=e456-918d , retrieved on 22/02/2013

2) http://whispersfromtheedgeoftherainforest.blogspot.ca/2013/02/mac-marketing-scandal-makes-headlines.html , retrieved on 22/02/2013

3) http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1155758/bogus-buyers-exposed-scam-boost-property-market-vancouver , retrieved on 22/02/2013

4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbfa2xpu9Aw , retrieved on 22/02/2013