Century 21 taps mobile games to reachpotential customersThe real estate giant put its brand in front of players of the mobile game ‘WeCity’ by offering them branded buildings and giving bonuses for watchingvideos.

By Matt Wilson | Posted: July 5, 2011

Imagine if you could get a free house, skyscraper or office simply byputting a company’s brand name on it somewhere.

Though that sounds like a pretty crazy business practice in the realworld, Century 21 made just such an offer in the virtual world ofmobile game developer ngmoco’s “We City.” In the "SimCity"-stylegame for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, players build cities using

“coin” they acquire in the game to add buildings.

In April, the real estate sales company, in partnership with social firm Appssavvy, gave players theoption of adding Century 21-branded buildings to their cities. Over the three weeks or so thepromotion ran, players placed 401,318 branded structures.

That proves mobile gaming is a place where brands can really get through to potential customers,says Matt Gentile, director of communications at Century 21.

“You’re looking at reaching approximately 26 million consumers who are playing these games,” hesays. “In order to effectively reach the next generation of home buyers and sellers, what better placeto put a brand placement?”

Entering the space

Century 21 began its talks with Appssavvy early this year, Gentile says. In March, the company alsorolled out its new multiplatform mobile app at its international convention, so Century 21’s focus wasalready strongly on mobile platforms.

“We realized the importance and growing preference for consumers to gather information, researchand, in the gaming space, have a lot of fun, directly from their smartphones,” Gentile says. “Ourleadership here on the marketing team, through Bev Thorne, our CMO, has always tried to make

sure that we’re a step ahead.”

Appsavvy initially brought Century 21 the idea of getting into a mobile game, but Century 21’s teamdecided on offering the three free structures. The company also offered players in-game money forwatching 30-second ads.

Picking the game

There were “a number of advantages” to promoting the Century 21 brand via “We City,” Gentilesays. For one thing, it’s a game about building real estate.

“What more applicable game for the world largest real estate brand to get involved in than one thathas an emphasis on building houses?” he says.

The game had some other attractive traits, too. It was fairly new, with its initial release in September2010, but had a “significant population” of about 10 million actively playing, Gentile says. Even moreimportant, no other brands had used the game for similar promotions.

Appssavvy and ngmoco each promoted the initiative via blog posts, which led to comments rangingfrom excitement to good-natured ribbing. “Talk about product placement!” commenter dexster69wrote on the “We City” website. “I suddenly have the urge to buy a house from Century 21.”

Century 21 puts a consistent brand on itsdiverse social media channels

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Driving preference

Gentile says Century 21 doesn’t quite have the ability to track a game player from the game to theCentury 21 website to a lead form or purchase just yet, but the “results have been very favorable”when it comes to driving customer preferences, he says.

“The metrics we came away with from the brand survey study are pretty powerful stuff,” Gentile says.

More than 90 percent of users who got a prompt to watch a video clicked through to see the ad.That equaled about 300,000 video views in three weeks. Of the players who placed buildings in thegame—and about 92 percent of those who had the chance did so—58 percent retained the brand’smessage, the survey found.

Once the campaign was over, 21 percent more users thought the brand was “smart” than hadpreviously, and nearly 18 percent more found Century 21 “innovative.”

“Perhaps they didn’t think of Century 21 in such a light prior to seeing us in a new medium,” saysGentile.

The next step for Century 21 is preparing for its 2012 Super Bowl ad after a long stint of avoiding TVadvertising, Gentile says. But rest assured mobile communications “will continue to be a hugeopportunity for brands like ours,” he says.

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