Abil Group. Stunning adverts. Pretty projects. Crappy website!

That is simply, an astounding piece of real estate!

While flipping through the April issue of Home, we found a very interesting advert. The Castel Royale Towers from Abil Group looked absolutely stunning in the print ad. The design of the page was simple, clutter free and it conveyed most of what a very rich dude, seeking luxury living in Pune would look for.

Along with the project 'night view' 3D rendering which looked smashing, there were some actual pictures which were neat and clearly relayed the fact that this was a serious real estate product from a serious real estate company. The information was crisp and teasing enough in nature for this guy to stop his Audi or Porsche and make a call to find out more! It had us hooked. Nice.

But, at 5600 Sq ft for a simplex and 9600 Sq ft for a duplex, we see some challenges. At that size and price point, the typical Indian moneyed guy would wait half a lifetime, buy a piece of land at an appropriate address and build his own villa. You may differ but ask yourself this. Do you know someone who owns a BMW? Yes. Do you know someone who owns a Porsche? Yes again. Do you know someone who owns that Rolls Royce you see sometimes? Maybe you don't know him personally but you know his name and what he does. But do you know someone who owns a 10000 Sq ft apartment on the 25th floor? With ten more such guys below him? We don't know anyone like that, so we have our doubts about that. We reckon that a lot of people buying those apartments would be NRIs.

Bad layout, cheap look and feel, overlapping text?

Assuming that and seeing that stunning advert we were talking about earlier, we punched in abilgroup.com and hit enter. Man were we disappointed. Had the Abil logo not been the same, there was no way we would believe that the website and the advert belonged to the same company!

Yes, there is that much of a difference. The website's layout is bad, the images are grainy, the fonts are bordering on average and the buttons and feel is absolutely third grade. It is like putting a Mahindra Bolero dashboard into a VW Phaeton. Get the point? Considering that even the Bolero dashboard actually does all the work that is expected of a dashboard.

So lets quickly jot down the pros and cons of the Abil website.

+ (Pros)
1. The images are stunning. Simply because the company has built great real estate and photographed it.
2. Well, that is all

- (Cons)

1. The landing page needs sorting out. Why would someone go to home> ventures> real estate to find what he is looking for, especially when he is going to pay the company crores of rupees. The first impression is a big let down.
2. Fonts across the website need to be changed.
3. There is too much cheap animation. And thus, very little class. Why would the buttons go red on rollover? Why?
4. Once you do find the project you are looking for, you click it and you reach a page that has just a small paragraph of text. That is it? Hang on, we finally found some buttons on the top of the page. But they had to be literally found.
5. The enquiry form looks like it came straight from veeru-raju-homes.com. Period. That is a case study in how not to make enquiry forms for something as expensive as that.

There seems to be some kind of a missing link between Abil's ad agency and their web designer. Which also tells us that their communications team is a little botched up somewhere. Dear Abil Group, you are looking at CEOs and their likes to buy these homes. Those guys are sharp and they listen to the intangible voices in their heads. If they have to go by your website to make a home buying decision in Pune, we can tell you that you are cutting a very sorry figure.

People from Abil Group, if you are listening, this is not a story to find faults or make comparisons. You led us into this journey with that beautiful print campaign and then you let us down with your website. This should also tell you that your prospective customers too, could be feeling that intangible negativity as they browse through your project website from their homes in New York, Dubai or Sydney.

Revamp your only 24x7 line of communication. Your website. That is what tells the world who you are. That is what would make that unknown, unseen customer of yours stand up in excitement and say, "I want to live there!"

Cheers!