Mortgage Broker

50 | fall 2016 cmba-achc.ca CMB MAGAZINE S ince becoming a mortgage broker in 1988, Ajay Soni believed his profession needed a universally recognized brand that would instantly identify the holder as a professional of the highest calibre. "e Society of Notaries Public of B.C. has its seal, the insurance brokers have their blanket, and realtors have their 'R,'" he told Canadian Mortgage Broker. "Mortgage brokers needed something to give them credibility." Soni, who is a senior mortgage broker at Invis in Vancouver and president of the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association (CMBA), toyed with the idea for many years. He even contemplated various new names for the profession, before realizing the term "mortgage broker" was the simplest and best choice. "e term is contained in the title of our governing legislation, the B.C. Mortgage Brokers Act," he explained. "e media even describes us as mortgage brokers, so why not capitalize on that? Other professions are using branding to bring credibility and awareness to their value proposition, and I believed we needed to do the same thing." In 2013, aer becoming president of the Mortgage Brokers Association of BC (MBABC), Soni was sketching out a few ideas when he hit upon the idea of just using the "M" and the "B" from "mortgage broker" to create a logo. e beauty of his idea was that the mark could be used to identify not only a person who is a mortgage broker, but a member of the association. He sent his sketch to designer Steve Culley at Culley Creative, explaining the concept of a unifying brand for professional mortgage brokers. "We went back and forth several times to refine the idea," noted Soni. "Ultimately, the final version that you see is what was agreed upon, and it's remarkably similar to my original sketch. e logo was presented to the MBABC board of directors and the rest, as they say, is history." e MBABC rolled out the logo in 2014, beginning with some advertising in the association magazine before progressing to signage and then to a Global TV campaign designed to educate consumers about the value of working with a mortgage broker. According to Soni, it didn't take long for the MB brand to spread beyond British Columbia. "We were being noticed by other organizations, media, and the mortgage brokering industry across the county," he said. "When someone visited B.C., they saw the brand and that awareness was slowing starting to spread across the country. And our Global TV commercials were seen in other provinces as well, increasing our brand recognition." e association followed up with a TV campaign on CBC and newspaper ads in the Vancouver Sun and the Province, as well as in BCBusiness magazine. In April 2015, the MBABC came together with the Mortgage Brokers Association of Atlantic Canada (MBAAC) and the Independent Mortgage Brokers Association of Ontario (IMBA) with the goal of creating a national umbrella organization that would help the provincial associations realize shared efficiencies, coordinate advocacy efforts and create a forum where the country's mortgage brokers could work cooperatively to further industry progress. at national association is the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association. CMBA president Ajay Soni discusses the creation of the MB logo BY LISA GORDON Birth of a Brand O r i g i n a l C o n c e p t s 2 0 1 3

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