DOES BRANDING HELP IN A DOWNTURN?

Real estate firms are trying to fight the downturn in many ways. Some are cutting staff, others are turning toward energy-saving measures, while more than a few have delayed projects in the pipeline. For last week's GlobeSt.com poll, we asked if rebranding a company could help fight the malaise. Most, 54%, disagreed, but a close 46% said that they thought those measures could help. In the minority is Celine Clarke, executive managing director of corporate communications at Cushman & Wakefield. She says, at least for her firm, branding is crucial in these times.

The Cushman & Wakefield brand is ultimately about our people. So basically what we do during this time is leverage the brand in any way that we can. We look internally and work with our resident experts and have them put together white papers, business briefings and special reports on their topics of interest. We transfer our knowledge onto our clients to help their businesses as much as we can. We're smarter about the way we use our brand during this time.

We also look internally at our firm. What we try to do is keep our focus on keeping our people together, working as a team and getting past these challenges. We hired an internal person and named him the head of global internal communications. That helped. We're staying focused on our vision as opposed to looking at the competition too much.