Guest post: 'Because paying rent sucks!'
By Sellsius real estate, Tuesday, December 18, 2007.Bookmarking Sites
Editor's note: Inman News will be discontinuing guest posts within the Inman News blog in 2008. This is the last guest post from the Sellsius bloggers. Thanks to all our guest contributors this year. Stay tuned for exciting changes to the Inman Blog next year!
53rd Street and Second Avenue - 12.17.07 10am
Do consumers pay attention to advertising anymore? Just use the word "suck" and they might. Trulia rolled out a second slogan for its New York City taxicab advertising campaign this week: "Because Paying Rent Sucks!" Most renters would likely agree with that statement. However, not everyone is ready to buy, and unfortunately, Trulia doesn't have rentals. So searching for a rental in New York City as a consumer still sucks! Unless of course you use Craigslist or Streeteasy.
Taxicab advertising is a moving billboard. The idea is to get as many people as possible to see the ad in different strategic locations throughout New York City. I found this taxi parked by Northern Boulevard in Queens and thought what a waste of an ad. Then I realized that there was some decent foot traffic in this location. So even when this taxi is off duty, Trulia is getting some additional bang for its buck as a stationary billboard in a local community. Genius!
Coincidentally, Trulia's timing could not have been better. The holiday season in New York City is traditionally a madhouse. Almost everyday is a gridlock alert day. This means that traffic virtually stands still. More people + standing traffic = a captive audience for their taxicab ad. I witnessed a young couple pointing to the ad and overheard them saying, "My landlord sucks!" Hey, at least they noticed the ad. I wish I had my digital camera out when that happened. Darnit!
Additionally, those pretty flowers you see on the roof and hood are not a part of the Trulia ad campaign. They are an urban art project called Garden in Transit that runs through the end of December. But they sure do grab people's attention and spark spontaneous sidewalk conversations. Being associated with this project, albeit indirectly, is an added bonus to their campaign.
I wonder if you can truly measure the ROI of this type of offline real estate advertising?
--Rudy Bachraty, Sellsius Blog
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Submitted by Anonymous on December 18, 2007 - 5:02pm.
My guess is there is no way to measure an ROI on this campaign. It's there to build name recognition and that's almost impossible to measure. Very clever campaign. I hope it's still running around when we come to NYC for Inman in a couple of weeks.
Submitted by Anonymous on December 18, 2007 - 5:40pm.
Rudy and Inman team,
Interesting to read your thoughts on the campaign. Glad you like it!
To your question about measuring the ROI of the campaign. It is of course less accountable than most online advertising, but I think that many readers would be surprised at the amount of measurement that we can do to figure out what is working and not. We relentlessly monitor both our geographic searches, types of search, on site activity and location of searchers. By comparing trends, we can get a fairly accurate picture of what is working or not.
This data is very useful for our own evaluation of marketing initiatives and also extremely important and valuable for our advertisers to enable us to offer geographic and behavioral targeting.
Yes the cabs will be running in Inman Connect NYC when you're there. If anyone has any more pics of the cabs, the team in San Francisco would love to see them - send them to pr@trulia.com . We'll send a special Trulia gift to the best pictures we receive!
Happy hols!
Pete
Submitted by Anonymous on December 18, 2007 - 8:11pm.
hi lenore!
your right. tracking any offline campaign is tough. in this instance, it's about creating brand awareness and mindshare.
hi pete!
ho, ho, ho...
it's so exciting to see an online web 2.0 company advertising in the real world. now if i recall correctly, and i may have to go back to the video tape, but i do remember both joe and i drilling the idea to both you and heather that in order to get any real traction, you must get the brand offline. i also remember that it wasn't in your budget or immediate plans or something to that effect. but, i guess santa came early :) good luck with the campaign. how long will it be up and running?
"behavioral targeting" has become a sensitive subject ever since the facebook fiasco. people seem to value their privacy for some strange reason, go figure. what's your take on this form of targeting? have any trulia users had any issues with this?
thanks pete!
Submitted by Anonymous on December 19, 2007 - 9:33am.
I think the behavioral targeting in Real Estate is a little different than that in Facebook. That is, an advertiser who wants to be on Trulia, say a luxury car company, may want their ad to only appear on homes 800K and up in major metros - maybe. It's not like users on Trulia are entering their favorite books on Amazon and Trulia is using that to serve them a divorce attorney ad, lol.
Submitted by Anonymous on December 19, 2007 - 5:47pm.
I like the campaign Pete. NYC is still very much "old school" and an offline ad campaign will work here. If you and the Trulia team want to try some other offline marketing ideas here, let's get together when you come to town for the Inman Connect. Rudy and I would love to catch up with you.
Merry Christmas and Cheerio!
Submitted by Anonymous on December 26, 2007 - 11:24pm.
The only downside is that your payment goes to interest and that if real estate prices actually decrease, then you could end up with negative equity - but in your case that would be almost impossible since you are putting down 20%.
Most people who get interest only loans don't put down a lot of money.
http://www.johnbeck.tv
Submitted by Anonymous on January 5, 2008 - 1:26am.
as an owner of one of those home rental sites ! i must say I LIKE THE AD ! SMART - I FEEL IN THE LONG RUN OF THINGS THE NEW LOOK OF REAL ESTATE WEBSITES ARE WHAT YOU GUYS HAVE MASTERED its not only easy to use it's fun to use -any plans for a rental site ?? WAIT........ PAYING RENT SUCKS ! LOL -WWW.SUPERHOMERENTALS.COM
Submitted by Anonymous on January 6, 2008 - 2:03am.
According to a report by CNN, the 5 most expensive housing markets in the USA in 2007 along with average home prices were Beverly Hills, CA $2,206,883, Greenwich, CT $2,018,750, La Jolla, CA $1,800,000, Santa Monica, CA, $1,785,000, and Palo Alto, CA $1,687,000 .
The 5 least expensive housing markets in the USA in 2007 along with average home prices were Killeen, TX $136,725, Minot, ND $139,033, Arlington, TX $139,175, Canton, OH $146,333, and Muncie, IN $150,000.
According to the National Association of Realtors, the 5 cities with the biggest drop in home prices in 2007 were Palm Bay, FL $182,400 (median price) 12.4% (price drop), Sacramento, CA $335,700 (median price)10.5% (price drop), Sarasota, FL $287,400 (median price) 10.4% (price drop), New Orleans, LA $160,200 (median price) 8.2% (price drop), and Hagerstown, MD $208,400 (median price) 8.0% (price drop).
The 5 fastest appreciating housing markets were Bismarck, ND $161,600 (median price) 15.3% increase, Salt Lake City, UT $246,700 (median price) 14.1% increase, Yakima, WA $163,200 (median price) 13.6% increase, Binghamton, NY $119,600 (median price) 11.4% increase, and Charlotte, NC $220,100 (median price) 11.0% increase.