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 # 218 |
Case Study |
| CalCoast
Development
Situation CalCoast
Development
in Los Angeles had already created a legacy for itself. For years it
had
been building a range of affordable to up-scale town homes,
condominiums,
and apartments in a community it had named and built from the ground
up:
Monterey Hills, California. Problem As
Los Angeles
was about to host the summer Olympics and families were getting out of
town fearing they'd be under siege by tourists, CalCoast was realizing
it had too many unknowns in the mix: Was the real estate market
actually
making a comeback? Would the buzz in real estate be enough to
overcome
the media hype that was already promoting the Olympics? If
potential
buyers could be attracted to grand openings at Catalina Terrace and
Marshall
Villas, would they be of a mind to make commitments?
Solution |
CalCoast knew that many of the residents of Monterey Hills were
professionals
who worked in downtown Los Angeles.
At
optimum drive times, one could commute up the Pasadena Freeway to
Monterey
Hills from downtown Los Angeles in about seven minutes.>
The Monterey Hills community is literally situated on a mountainous plateau above the City overlooking the entire Los Angeles Basin. On a clear day you can see Santa Catalina Island. And on hazy and smoggy days, you can see some of the better sunsets Los Angeles has to offer. As the Summer Olympics approached, and as a plethora of licensed and non licensed product came onto the market promoting their "official" status with the tightly regulated Olympic games, there was considerable buzz over the legitimacy of some product claims and over just what constitutes "official." Besides CalCoast residences, and their close proximity to the City, the only thing Monterey Hills had going for it was its sunsets. Nobody owns sunsets. Nobody had an official site on 1984 summer sunsets, so CalCoast claimed it for Monterey Hills. The metaphor was almost perfect! The idiom of watching and responding to sunsets allowed CalCoast to spoof the Olympic rip off in progress without ripping off the Olympics itself. In claiming sunsets as its official sport, and Monterey Hills as the official site for this sport, there were no issues with respect to the Olympics. Real estate editorials in the Los Angeles Times promoted Monterey Hills as "the quaint, country community just seven minutes north of downtown Los Angeles -- official site of 1984 summer sunsets." Transit ads targeting home-late commuters to and from downtown Los Angeles proclaimed, "We want you out of town by sunset!" Newspaper and radio ads offered special financing "well below the horizon" and "sunsets at 11-3/4%, 30 year fixed assumable . . . prime living at well below the horizon." It was, after all, 1984. Results CalCoast sold out of its Catalina Terrace and Marshall Villas holdings in about nine months. However, it continued with the "official sunset" campaign on other Monterey Hills properties for several years beyond what some have called "the most successful Olympics ever." The "Official Sunset Game," with rules and regs for watching/playing/judging sunsets was created by the agency as a potential handout for CalCoast sites in Monterey Hills, however it was never used. The sell through from this campaign was that successful. |