The Nationals: First Impression

For many buyers, advertising is their first introduction to a community. What makes them stop flipping pages in a newspaper real estate section or a magazine and take a second look at one community over another? It's all about breaking out of the pack and running in a space all your own. These three gold-award winning projects broke away from the norm and generated traffic and sales for the builders.

When Pine Creek at Briargate first opened in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1999, it was the only golf course community in the area. It was pretty easy to drive traffic. But as more competition entered the market, most of the golf course lots were sold and the buyer profile shifted away from golfers. Developer La Plata Investments decided to reposition the community as being close to everything that mattered to its buyers, says Nick Sabatello, director of marketing for the company.

“We could have done that with a picture of a house, mountains, and kids in the park, but it would have looked like everything else,” he says. “I said to cut through the clutter.”

Denver-based real estate branding firm Milesbrand developed a series of automotive-themed ads, starting with “Stick Shift.” (The visual, right, is a gear shift with just three gears—first, second, and reverse—and the tagline “Close to everything that's good. Really close.”) The second and third ads featured a gas pump and an oil change. “I got calls that week from real estate agents asking, ‘Where did this ad come from?' ” Sabatello says. “I got calls from media asking if we wanted to advertise with them. They never called us before.”

Milesbrand president Dave Miles says it requires that extra moment of consideration to understand the meaning of a shifter that doesn't go past second gear. “It's the ‘aha' moment,” Miles says. “When you can do that with communication, it elevates the experience and makes [the customer] think different[ly] about the planning and thought that goes into the whole community. ... You get a much better return on investment when you have work that breaks through like that.”

Rike Palese got that kind of return with his advertising for The Landmark in Greenwood Village, Colo. The director of sales for the luxury tower was tired of all the typical superlatives—“luxurious this and that, which is meaningless,” he says. He wanted to convey the level of upscale service residents would experience in a way they would remember.

The team from Greene & Birnbach wanted to use editorial photography—like the images they loved in Gourmet magazine—for its ability to capture a moment, but didn't have time before the sales launch to commission original photography. They spent hours poring over stock images that left them cold, partner Mindy Greene says. Then they found the dog shot (top left, page 166).

“You just look at it and you smile,” she says. “It's hilarious.” It also was utterly different from anything else in the media. “It was 100 percent us [The Landmark] and no one else,” Greene says. “We were lucky enough to have a good client who was willing to take that risk.”

The ad helped generate 4,000 phone inquiries, 4,300 Internet queries, and 300 names on a reservation list for 137 units in the four months leading up to the sales launch. On the first day of sales, 107 units sold in five hours.

“We had an event absolutely packed with people putting their money down,” Greene says. “People were begging strangers to trade units with them. I've never seen anything like it.”

When you have a small community with a small marketing budget, you need a precise message. The imagery and copy need to reach a specific audience. That was the position for Lake Forest's “fountain of youth” ad. Stock photography kept the cost of the visual element down, and it worked well in color and in black and white. The copy hit the critical points—Lake Forest's great amenities and the city of Cumming, Ga.'s excellent schools, convenient location, and low taxes. It was especially important because the community has been open a few years, and there was nothing new to prompt buyers to come visit.

“Our target audience is families with children—the ad campaign is trying to target big kids and little kids alike,” says Phil Corley, builder Pathway Communities' account manager at McRae Communications.

Pathway's media strategy was to put the ad in front of the most promising buyer demographic, says vice president of sales Peggy Sullivan. “I can't do dollar for dollar what the big guys do,” Sullivan says. “We have to be precise.” To that end, she bypassed advertising in the major daily newspaper's Sunday real estate section, opting for local publications “where our customers are coming from,” followed up by in-person meetings with area Realtors.

The ad and another like it helped draw 885 traffic units to Lake Forest's information center over a nine-month period and helped produce five sales per month during that time. It's a formula Sullivan will use again. “Something happy-go-lucky always seems to bring the customer in,” she says. “You can't go wrong with that.”

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SLOW LANE: Milesbrand president Dave Miles cites this ad as a great example of concept advertising, using strong visuals to communicate a brand position. In this case, it's Pine Creek's convenience to everything that matters to buyers.

Number of units: 330

Price range: $300,000s to $500,000s

Date opened for sale: March 2002

Sales volume: 5 per month (January 2005 to September 2005)

Advertising budget: $242,000

Qualified traffic generated: 885 traffic units to information center (January 2005 to September 2005)

SLOW LANE:

Category:

Number of units: 137

Price range: $200,000 to $1 million

Date opened for sale: July 2005

Sales volume: 90 percent sold

Total traffic: 4,000 phone inquiries, 4,300 Internet inquiries, 300 names on reservation list

Advertising budget: $618,329

Qualified traffic generated: 4,300

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UPDATED MESSAGE: With a community a few years old and nothing new to tell, Lake Forest shared a simple, but enduring, message about its features in a fresh way.

Number of units: 1,400

Price range: Mid-$300,000s to upper $600,000s

Date opened for sale: Spring 1999

Sales volume: 16 to 17 per month since January 2005

Total traffic: Average 263 per month since January 2005

Advertising budget: $260,000 (+/- 10 percent) for 2005

Qualified traffic generated: 30 percent to 60 percent of average traffic per month since August 2005