The Evolving Role of Real Estate CMOs: Insights from Mahindra Lifespaces’ Ankur Parmar
In today’s fast-evolving world of marketing, the role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is more crucial than ever. In Adgully’s weekly column – CMO Unplugged – we bring you candid insights, expert advice, and thought-provoking discussions directly from the heart of the industry. CMO Unplugged goes beyond the surface to uncover the real strategies, innovations, and challenges that define successful marketing leadership today.
For decades, real estate marketing followed a familiar script: build trust, promise a dream, and hope the buyer signs before the next brochure lands in their mailbox. Homes were sold through glossy visuals, sweeping lifestyle promises, and the quiet reassurance that the developer could be trusted with a family’s biggest financial decision. But today’s homebuyer shows up very differently. They arrive armed with research, questions, and a healthy dose of scepticism.
Ankur Parmar, CMO, Mahindra Lifespaces, believes that this shift has fundamentally changed the role of marketing in the category. Trust may still open the door, but it no longer seals the deal. Buyers want clarity, proof, and a believable vision of what living in that space will actually feel like years down the line. In conversation with Adgully, Ankur Parmar talks about why real estate marketing must move beyond selling square feet and start explaining ideas, experiences, and long-term value.
Real Estate Brands Traditionally Sell Trust, Not Aspiration. Is That Still True, or Is Trust Now Just the Entry Ticket?
In the past, real estate purchase was dominated by local players, where homebuyers often relied on their local acquaintance with the developer as a surrogate for trust. The implementation of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) significantly strengthened transparency, mandatory project registration, and developer accountability, raising the credibility bar across the industry. Despite this, trust is paramount in real estate, given past negative experiences, the scale of lifetime savings invested in purchasing a home, and the long 4–5 years journey during which buyers continue to pay as their dream home takes shape.
However, with these reforms, the category has become more structured, enabling the entry of many branded players that are often larger than local developer brands. As a result, today trust functions more as a baseline than a true differentiator. Today’s buyers are more informed and analytical. What sets brands apart is the ability to deliver aspiration convincingly through thoughtful design, quality execution, and long-term living experience. Trust is now the entry ticket; aspiration, when backed by credibility, drives preference.
What’s the One Legacy Real Estate Marketing Belief You’ve Actively Dismantled at Mahindra Lifespaces?
A belief I have worked to dismantle is that real estate marketing exists mainly to persuade. At Mahindra Lifespaces, we shifted from selling square feet and price tags to explaining design philosophy, sustainability outcomes, and long-term livability. Today’s buyers are informed, research-oriented, and looking for clarity rather than a sales pitch. They want credible information and proof points that help them make a confident decision. Our role is to simplify complexity and enable informed choice, not add noise. Transparent communication and meaningful value articulation help us build deeper trust and stronger preference.
Category Advertising Often Collapses into Sameness. How Do You Enforce Creative Distinctiveness Without Losing Category Cues?
Distinctiveness does not come from rejecting category cues. It comes from choosing which of them you want to own and which you will not associate. In real estate, trust, credibility, and reassurance are non-negotiable category signals, and we retain those. However, instead of replicating the category’s visual tropes or urgency-led messaging, we differentiate through tone, depth, and intent. Our creative work focuses on explaining why a home is designed a certain way, how sustainability shows up in everyday living, and what the long-term experience looks like. That clarity becomes our signature. Sameness happens when brands chase familiarity. Distinctiveness comes from having a clear and consistent point of view within the familiar frame of the category.
Has Storytelling in Real Estate Reached Diminishing Returns, or Is the Problem Lazy Storytelling?
Storytelling has not lost its impact. What has declined is the buyer’s patience for stories that are disconnected from real experience. Buyers now start their journey much earlier and more independently through digital research, online comparisons, and independent reviews. Clear evidence of this trend comes from industry coverage showing that Indian homebuyers increasingly explore, short-list, and evaluate projects online before engaging directly with developers. A shift that places a premium on credible, factual communication. At the same time, regulatory reforms in India have strengthened the discipline of disclosure and accountability. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) has institutionalized standardized project disclosures, enforcement of approvals and timelines, and clearer frameworks for buyer protection. Buyers now expect developers to substantiate what they communicate with data, evidence, and transparency. In such a landscape, storytelling that leans solely on aspirational imagery or generic lifestyle claims is no longer effective.
How Do You Decide When a Project Deserves a Mass-Media Push Versus a Precision-Led, Hyperlocal Approach?
The decision begins with separating visibility needs from conversion needs. A mass media push becomes relevant when a project must establish broad legitimacy, such as in new markets, new formats, or in moments where brand reassurance and scale matter. A precision-led, hyperlocal approach is more effective when the audience is clearly defined, geographically concentrated, and already in market. In such cases, depth of relevance matters far more than breadth of reach. Many marketers treat this as a budget decision. In reality, it is a role of media decision. The core question is whether the project needs to be widely known or deeply understood. The answer determines the mix.
What Role Does First-Party Data Realistically Play in Real Estate Marketing, Given Long Consideration Cycles?
In real estate, first-party data is less about predicting when someone will buy and more about understanding how their intent evolves over time. Given long consideration cycles, we use first-party signals—content consumed, site behavior, enquiry patterns, and repeated touchpoints—to identify where a customer is in their decision journey. That allows us to shift communication from generic reminders to context-specific information: design explanations, sustainability details, construction updates, or financing clarity. The value of first-party data lies in sequencing relevance, not accelerating timelines. When used well, it improves decision confidence rather than forcing conversion.
Indian Homebuyers Are More Informed and More Anxious Than Ever. How Has That Changed the Marketing Tone and Promise?
The modern homebuyer is navigating a unique combination of expanded access to information and higher financial caution. Today’s buyers are intensely focused on practical factors such as delivery timelines, cost transparency, financing options, neighborhood value economics, and long-term investment resilience. As a result, real estate communication must go beyond emotional imagery and instead highlight transparent value, evidence of execution, and clear financial logic. The promise has shifted from selling desirable lifestyles to enabling informed and confident decisions. In an environment where buyers are both more informed and more cautious, persuasion alone is insufficient; credibility backed by clarity and substantiated claims has become central to effective marketing.
How Seriously Should Real Estate Marketers Be Taking Content Creators and Community-Led Influence?
The homebuying journey today begins long before a site visit. Buyers start with search engines, property portals, video platforms, and review forums where buyers actively shape their own understanding of the market. This fundamentally changes how influence should be viewed. Content creators, when credible and well-informed, can help simplify explaining layouts, contextualizing neighborhood advantages, and offering transparency through walkthroughs. Their value lies in interpretation, not promotion. However, in a category involving long-term financial commitment, community-led influence often carries greater persuasive authority. Resident testimonials, lived experiences, and post-handover satisfaction are powerful because they represent delivered truth rather than projected aspiration.
If You Had to Advise One Thing to CMOs Entering Real Estate from Other Categories, What Should They Unlearn First?
The first thing to unlearn is the belief that marketing’s primary role is to speed up the consumer journey. In most other categories, success is measured by how quickly consumers move from awareness to conversion. Real estate operates differently. It is a high involvement, high-risk decision where customers need time, reassurance, and repeated validation. When CMOs stop focusing only on short-term response and instead build trust, clarity, and consistency, marketing becomes more effective and far more credible in this category.
