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We live, breathe, and eat real estate over here. So when real estate shows up as the central theme in a national advertising campaign, we’re the kind of people who take notice and geek out about it in our morning meetings.
That’s what happened this past weekend when we took a 16-hour break to watch some of our favorite shows and noticed the latest Verizon Wireless commercials.
If you haven’t seen them yet, the campaign, titled “Flipside Stories,” features humorous point-counterpoint narratives of people whose lives have been affected by having—or not having—a cellphone signal. In two of the three spots, real estate is the central theme. Here’s one about two women trying to find a cell signal in the homes they’re considering purchasing:
Being the real estate geeks we are, we had to know how this came to be.
“We have many customers who are real estate professionals who tell us the reliability of our network matters to their livelihood,” said Heidi Flato, a public relations manager for Verizon. “Like most effective ad campaigns, this one is founded in reality.”
Note: They’re not actually real estate agents and clients in the commercials. They’re actors, of course. (Isn’t that Keiko Agena from The CW’s “Gilmore Girls”? Squee!)
Flato wouldn’t say much more about Verizon’s marketing strategy, or whether the company went this route because it has secret data revealing that Americans are thinking more than ever about buying new homes. But she did note that real estate is an industry that relies on wireless networks to succeed.
It’s “an occupation where reliability and speed are traits that make them stand out with their clients,” Flato said.
Well played, Verizon. Well played.