Company: Century 21 Real Estate LLC, Madison, NJ, USA
Entry Submitted By: Mullen
Company Description: Century 21 Real Estate LLC (CENTURY21.com) is the franchisor of the world's largest residential real estate sales organization, providing comprehensive training and marketing support for the CENTURY 21 System. The System is comprised of approximately 7,100 independently owned and operated franchised broker offices in 74 countries and territories worldwide with more than 100,000 sales professionals.
Nomination Category: Communications & Marketing Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Social Media Focused

Nomination Title: Century 21 Real Estate Moves into SimCity Social

In up to 525 words, tell the judges about the nominated campaign: its genesis, development, planning, commission, and performance to date:

Strategy

The new generation of homebuyers and sellers are more socially savvy than ever before. Armed with the knowledge that 81 million people play social games at least once a day (PopCap Games 2011) and social gamers are 27 percent more likely to have either bought their first home in the last year or are planning to buy their first home in the next year (Simmons New Media Study, Fall 2011), CENTURY 21, led by Chief Marketing Officer, Bev Thorne, and Mullen identified an opportunity to partner with the largest game provider, EA Games, on the most popular social network - Facebook. With more than 10 million Facebook players, the majority of the gaming brand’s SimCity Social users fall within the 25-to-34-year-old age group, representing the largest share of homebuyers. The alignment between audiences and the nature of the game - creating and maintaining your own real estate empire for virtual profit- produced a unique opportunity the team couldn't ignore.

What’s more, according to Simmons Research, 95 percent of people playing games do not multitask, making them a captive audience for brands like CENTURY 21 looking to deliver the dream of homeownership to millions who are intent on investing in real estate virtually, and eventually, in reality.

Objectives

Drive awareness and brand preference among our target audience of consumers between the ages of 25 and 34, representing the largest share of homebuyers. Engage with socially savvy homebuyers by delivering the virtual dream of homeownership to millions of the brand’s target consumers. Drive Facebook “likes” of Century 21 Real Estate LLC. Support the brand's Smarter. Bolder. Faster. marketing campaign by driving views of its advertising. Developed a branded structure - a CENTURY 21 Office Building – that players could build in their city to earn virtual currency (Simoleons), helping them grow their cities by buying new homes, businesses and land. Created a tab within the CENTURY 21 Facebook page where players were directed by in-game ads to claim their CENTURY 21 Office. Players also had the option to perform “friend or foe” actions on neighbors’ CENTURY 21 Office Buildings – such as consulting with an agent or stealing open house cookies – to earn additional merits in the game. Users were able to earn a free energy boost by watching an in-game, branded CENTURY 21 Smarter. Bolder. Faster. advertisement. The campaign generated awareness and interaction on a massive scale. Nearly 192,000 branded structures were placed, and, according to a post-campaign third-party ComScore study, players who redeemed the branded building were 65% more likely to name CENTURY 21 when thinking of real estate brands and 109% more likely to name the brand first, compared to those unexposed. In addition, according to the same study, those who redeemed the CENTURY 21 office were 27% more likely to consider and 30% more likely to recommend the brand to others.

We also garnered 23,000 views of our branded video with a 94% video completion rate and the campaign drove 53,466 Facebook “likes” – a roughly 225% increase from the start of the campaign. Mullen also secured 28 media placements resulting in 53,430,670 media impressions.

Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the team that created and carried out the nominated communications campaign (up to 125 words):

As the Chief Marketing Officer for CENTURY 21 Real Estate LLC, Bev Thorne leads the planning and execution of all marketing for the largest real estate franchise organization in the world including all consumer, broker and agent programs. With a heavy focus on strengthening the power and consistency of the brand across the globe, she leads a team that spans the full breadth of online and offline marketing media.

Thorne earned her MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has worked extensively in the areas of marketing, sales, branding and event management for both B2B and B2C. She and her husband have three children, and reside on a Christmas tree farm in Central New Jersey.