The housing industry in the GTA may seem like a dinosaur when it comes to marketing new projects.
Few builders have yet accepted that we live in an age where social networks are a major source of news and shared information for millions of people and where laptops, PDAs and now iPads are the tools many men, women and teens prefer to do research or just stay up to date on topics that interest them.
By far the majority of builders still stick with print ads, brochures and if they have ventured timidly into this age of high tech communication, they have web sites that do little but encourage you to register to receive more information by snail mail or email.
This month, however, a pair of savvy, experienced developers took the plunge into today’s technology and while their efforts are still in early innings they seem to be producing astonishing results.
What I am talking about specifically is The Rockport Group’s use of iPads as sales tools at the presentation centre for its 21 Clairtrell condo on the street of the same name just north and west of Sheppard Avenue East and Bayview Avenue and the Name The Condo on-line contest being staged for the second condo tower at the Sony Centre redevelopment project at Front and Yonge Streets.
Rockport and 21 Claritrell first. Rockport is a long established developer. Jack Winberg its president is the second generation to run the company. It is counterintuitive to think that Rockport would boldly go where no developer has gone before.
Yet when a techie from its sales agency suggested picking up 30 iPads and putting on them all the usual marketing material plus a video of the community and proposed features of the building, Mr. Winberg immediately saw the benefits.
“I even took it a step further,” he says. “I decided we would give an iPad loaded with all the information on 21 Clairtrell to anyone who decided to buy a suite. That way they would have at hand the very latest new gadget to use to show friends and family just what they were getting.”
Mind you it took trips to three different stores before his team could assemble 30 iPads. But now five of them are used by sales agents at the presentation centre and the remaining ones are handed to prospective buyers so they can sit in comfort and run through all the informational and promotional material at their own pace.
Here I have to correct myself. In fact there are far fewer iPads available right now for use by prospective buyers. In the first 10 days of the introduction of the iPad, five people bought suites after using them and each got to take that iPad home.
“What we found is that the idea of using iPads engages people,” says Mr. Winberg. Their eyes do not glaze over as sales people go through their spiel; they are not daunted by the profusion of brochures and floor plans.
Will he use them again at other projects? Too soon to say, Mr. Winberg says.
The Name Our Condo contest came from the fertile brain of Rob Galletta, president of BlackJet Inc., an advertising and marketing company that specialises in use of digital media. When he was invited to make a pitch to the trio of partners in the Sony Centre site – Cityzen Development Group, Castle Point
Realty Partners and Fernbrook Homes, he suggested what he calls crowd sourcing as a way of creating awareness and buzz for the new tower, which will be built behind the Sony Centre at the corner of the Esplanade and Yonge Street.
Companies like Doritos and Mountain Dew had used it to great effect so why not the real estate industry?
The developers quickly bought in, BlackJet created the name our condo web site and invited people to suggest a name then get their social networks to vote for it. By the end of the first week the site had drawn 145,000 page views and 30,000 unique visits. At the end of 12 days it had drawn 1,250 suggestions for a name and tens of thousands of votes.
“The site was so popular we could have sold ads to Google,” Mr. Galletta says.
The awareness of the project also got an unexpected boost. An underground hackers network 4Chan suggested the tower be named after Chris Poole, its founder. His screen name is M00T. That drew 5,000 votes. The hackers were the same group that high jacked Time magazine’s online vote for the most influential person in the world. Thanks to their floodtide of votes MOOT topped Time’s List.
“We disqualified them,” says Mr. Galletta, “But the story got picked up by newspapers and even magazines and that gave awareness another big boost.”
Mr. Galletta does not expect most of the people who suggested names or who voted to be buyers.
“But there will be people in their social networks who will be looking for a new condo and there will be a high level of awareness among all of them about this project when it comes time to marketing it this fall. And creating awareness is half the game,” he says.
