a dictionary of received property jargon

In the late nineteenth century, Gustave Flaubert wrote Le Dictionnaire des idées reçues, a sardonic catalogue of the clichés and platitudes regurgitated by the French bourgeoisie without interrogation as performative rituals of class belonging.

This is, however, not only a class observation. Entire industries gradually congeal around certain words, aesthetics and precepts because they signal belonging, credibility and status within the sector itself.

Property is a case in point.

You are Grade-A? I am Grade-A. You have a roof terrace? I have a roof terrace. You hired a barista? I hired a barista.

It is excellent as status signalling within an anxious competitive ecosystem. It is terrible for market differentiation.

In fact, property has developed its own dictionary of received ideas, and it manifests itself in how developments are designed, branded and marketed. Received ideas and mantras we all encounter every day:

Quarter. Square.

Every development now seems to be a “Quarter” or a “Square”, regardless of whether it possesses an actual square or yard, or whether it is simply leaning on imported branding speak from the USA.

Compare that to names like The Albany, Tea Building or the Brunel Building. Names rooted in architecture, industry, history or urban memory rather than generic placemaking vocabulary.

Addresses with gravitas.

Stunning new development

The first rule of branding is never talk about branding. A brand is what people say about you, not what you say about yourself. The more developments insist they are “stunning”, “vibrant” and “exciting”, the more they begin to resemble someone utterly charmless at a dinner party repeatedly insisting they are fascinating.

Exciting retail opportunity

Am I missing something for not getting excited about a shell-and-core retail unit? The universe of retail is indeed exciting, but how exactly is this captured here?

Sense of arrival

Unless the Martians have landed in the car park, you cannot credibly describe a double-height reception engineered to within an inch of its life as a “sense of arrival”.

Wellbeing

There is something vaguely pagan about the property industry’s faith in biophilia to cure all workplace ills, or treating a bog-standard staircase as though it were a luxury spa.

Amenity-rich

Refer to “stunning new development” above.

Beautifully tailored spaces

Delivered in new offices by an avalanche of white plasterboard, off-the-shelf fire doors with vision panels and feature walls assembled with all the conviction of a motorway service station refurbishment.

Fostering collaboration

Usually illustrated by the CGI of a sad empty meeting room.

Creative agencies inherit products they had no involvement in conceiving all the time, yet still tailor branding and marketing around them. In property, branding too often taps into the folder on the desktop and clicks “save as”.

What makes this particularly strange is that the landscape of marketing and PR in London operates on a completely different level of ingenuity and cultural awareness. In a city of Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett, property marketing still often resembles a soap advert painted on a brick wall in 1890.

The same brochures. The same restaurant photography. The same rehashed tube map. The same CGIs as sexy as dad jokes.

The impact of these clichés is immense because language shapes perception long before an occupier enters a building.

Language is never neutral.

Eventually, industries begin designing according to the words they endlessly repeat.

Run-of-the-mill branding signals a run-of-the-mill product. It fosters convergence. It breeds homogeneity. It creates interchangeability in a market that increasingly depends on differentiation.

And this is the real missed opportunity. Unlike a typical creative agency, property branding is commissioned by the same developer who appoints the architect. Good branding relates to the product. Great branding influences how the product came about.

Branding should not merely describe architecture after the fact. It should help shape it.

And it does not necessarily require a larger budget or an additional consultant appointment. The infrastructure is already there and so is the talent. It simply requires intention and confidence.