July 1, 2014|Kim's Blog, Marketing, Property, Social Media, Strategy, Web Sites|

As part of my research into what’s happening (and, more importantly, what’s likely to be happening) in the fast moving world of property marketing, I spoke to Barbara Becchetti of CBRE http://www.cbre.eu/emea_en

Campaign planning

MIPIM, the annual four day event for the real estate industry which takes place in Cannes, France each March remains a major challenge for property companies as they seek a way to stand out from the crowd. The need to be clear about aims and messaging is the starting point.

“We had three objectives:

1. We wanted to highlight our market-leading expertise and services with particular reference to capital markets

2. We wanted to secure high level media coverage for our research and key spokespeople and

3. We wanted our stand design, packaging of our research and digital and social media presence to be seen as innovative.

Our strategy was to dramatise and market 80 pieces of content from across the globe using both talking heads and infographics and to promote this through our Bull or Bear web pages, an on-stand media wall, our capital watch blog and client emails. We also sought ways to integrate our Investment Strategies Forum to widen distribution and open up other interactive opportunities”.

Integrated communications mix

The campaign integrated a number of elements including:

Advertising

  • a fabulous core graphic and digital animation with a tessellation of bears and bulls
  • a series of advertisements in the FT (audience 1.5m)
  • Double page advertising in British Airways Business Life magazine (European readership 657K)
  • 22 large poster formats at Nice airport (audience 784K pcm)
  • LinkedIn display advertising campaign targeting real estate sector director level and key European client list running across five country accounts. (This generated an increase of 235% in the firm’s Global Capital Markets group)
  • Additional advertising in European Property, PERE and locally in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, France and the Netherlands

Public Relations and Research

  • a quality magazine (Global Property Insight) was launched focussing on commercial property investment and high end corporate offices at MIPIM as in insert in the FT
  • The Investor Intentions research, which was launched in 2010, received a record number of responses and surveys and is being extended to Asia Pacific and the US

On-line/digital

  • a dedicated web page http://www.cbre.eu/emea_en/mipim_2014 was established containing capital markets focused content and the results from the investor intention survey
  • a live survey was run at MIPIM and more than 300 people were interviewed during MIPIM – 85% of those surveyed said that there were “bullish” about the European commercial real estate market in 2014
  • a Twitter hashtag of #bullorbear was featured on every ad, linking the results to the live on-site survey. It also started numerous conversations on-line. Gemma Godfrey tweeted about the campaign – she has over 50,000 followers and was voted “Most Popular Businesswoman on Twitter” and “Commentator of the Year”
  • a  client emailer achieved a 47% read rate

Events

  • Two large displays in the Palais at MIPIM
  • A new media wall on the stand displaying 80 pieces of content including video interviews, infographics and live tweets – all content was reused and distributed via multiple media outlets
  • The Global Investment Forum remains the key event at MIPIM and it took a global focus in 2014. Over 115 clients and journalists attended from over 80 countries
  • Numerous other events were hosted by Property EU including on topics including European debt, logistics, e-commerce and Spanish investment

Results

As well as the results shown above, there were various analytics to show web site page views, increased time on web and video visits, additional social media followers and connections and press coverage.

Please get in touch if you have something to share that challenges conventional thinking in property marketing. These and other ideas formed part of my session at the EG Conference Marketing Summit on 26th June 2014 http://www.estatesgazetteevents.com/marketingsummit2014

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