
Tuesday the 14th December 2010 may not go down as a historic day is the same manner as the First Moon Landing or the invention of the Guttenberg Press, but in its own way it was a significant day.
It was the day of the Great New Zealand Property Tour – a fun and unique event to showcase the capabilities of the new iPhone app from Realestate.co.nz.
We wanted a means by which we could show off the extensive coverage of the app around NZ. So rather than invest in world leading advertising campaign featuring international TV stars to showcase the extremes of NZ coverage; we in typical kiwi style grabbed a couple of flights to set off around the country and try and get to 6 locations across the North and South Island in a day – only using scheduled flights.
14 hours after we set off from Auckland we returned home having taken 6 flights and seen 5 locations around the country and more importantly demonstrated the app at each location.
Due to the vagaries of the weather we had to unfortunately skip the stop-over in Blenheim. We did however touchdown at Napier, Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown and Auckland.
Through the day we encountered some really great people – Elvis (aka Brian Childs) in Wellington, Louise McLeavy in the Garden City and Mark Martin in Queenstown – all great real estate agents and all passionate about the new app for their clients. It is great to see the way the real estate profession is adopting new technology and demonstrating to their clients the power of open accessible data.
We actively used social media during the day – employing both Twitter and Facebook to engage the growing audience with the fun and appreciation of the app. We created a unique Twitter page which captured 171 followers during the day, this was supported by tweets from key people in our team with their own tweets and also the Realestate.co.nz twitter page. On Facebook we created a special section on the Realestate.co.nz Facebook page to profile the tour and gained over 200 new fans on the day – come and join us and follow us on both now! We also added all the videos we produced on the day tracking our path round the country.
Prizes were flowing thick and fast with vouchers, a Foosball table and 2 iPhones – thanks to the great team at Westpac. These prizes were given away to fast fingered tweeters who decrypted the clues sent out when we landed at each location.
We had a chance at each location to launch the app and examine the market and in some cases we chatted to the agents to get them to give us a perspective on the property market. Our time at most locations did not allow us to check out any property with the exception of Queenstown where Mark Martin showed us this amazing Alpine villa property perched magnificently high atop Queenstown Hill. The property was easily found via the app with some awesome photos. We did our own checks on the home, storing images and making notes on bedrooms, bathrooms and gardens.
Credits:
Starring in order of appearance
Brian Childs (aka Elvis) – Professionals Hutt City
Aaron Davis – apologies from 16,000 ft over Blenheim
Louise McLeavey – Harcourts
Mark Martin – Harcourts Queenstown
Original concept – Bullet PR
Screenplay – Nicholas O’Flaherty
Script – done on the fly productions
App design and build: Cactus Lab – Karl, Matt and the team
Prizes :
Mitre 10
Endemicworld.com
Urbis Magazine
Hire a Hubby
Westpac Bank – Adrian McCaffrey : Marketing Manager – Housing
Production:
Video camera operator – Tammy Smith
Video equipment – Flip camera : Barnacle Barnes
All technology used in this production of this blog post and the whole of the NZ Property Tour was courtesy of Apple Computers
Make up – not enough time to apply any!
Facebook pages – Skinny marketing – Andrew & Anthony
Video upload – Skinny Marketing
Catering services – Air New Zealand Koru lounges
Tweeter – @nzpropertytour : Robyn Ellson
Tweeter – @realestateconz : Kerry Kissane
Tweeter – @bulletpr : Alex Erasmus
Tweeter – @alistairnz : Alistair Helm
Ground Transportation – Christchurch : Jackie (Christchurch Blue Star Taxis)
Flight planning co-ordination : Air New Zealand excellent online booking
Flight rescheduling : Adrian – Air New Zealand Koru lounge concierge
All flights – Air New Zealand
Special thanks to Westpac bank for being a great partner in developing and promoting the app