For years, one of the marketing tools used by apartment properties to lure renters has been the full-size, four-color brochure. Filled with photographs, floor plans and flowery text, brochures are a time-proven means of letting prospective residents know what they can expect on move-in day and afterward.
But no matter how slickly packaged, any brochure is limited in its ability to give renters a real sense of an apartment community’s livability. For that reason, a select number of upscale apartment properties around the country are developing CD-ROM brochures that convey everything a printed brochure can, but also provide music, voiceover narration, videos and virtual tours of the apartments, common areas and surroundings.
At the forefront of the trend is One Superior Place, an 809-unit luxury high-rise building that opened last month on the Gold Coast. Bounded by State, Dearborn, Superior and Huron Streets, the 52-story, $112-million community was developed by Arlington, Va.-based Charles E. Smith Residential Realty Inc., in association with Chicago developers Near North Properties (which will manage the building) and Magellan Development Group Inc.
Given the caliber of residents One Superior Place expects to attract, CD-ROM technology was a natural fit, said Robin Berger, vice president of marketing with Near North Properties. “In thinking about our target group of renters, we felt they would be very Internet-savvy, have a real sense of the Web and CD-ROM products, and be very comfortable with e-mail,” she said. “(The) whole marketing program is very technology-oriented, so instead of developing a traditional brochure, we decided to develop a CD-ROM brochure.”
When prospective residents visit One Superior Place, they will be able to view the CD-ROM on computer kiosks in the sixth-floor rental center. And when they leave, they will have the chance to take the CD-ROM home with them for free. Inside the disk case will be a colorful 20-page printed “mini-brochure” not unlike the cover booklet offered with a typical CD-ROM, said Berger.
When they load the CD-ROM into their home computers, prospects will be able to take virtual tours of the convertible, one- and two-bedroom apartments at One Superior Place.
A furniture template will allow them to move furniture around their preferred apartments, see how the units look furnished, and print out those images.
“We took photos from each unit, so you can see outside your window what the view will be,” added Berger. “If you’re in the living room, for example, you can do a 360-degree (sweep) of the room. Then you can zoom in and and come up to the window and look out the window.”
Also on the CD-ROM will be what Berger terms “lifestyle tours,” with video clips of Oak Street Beach, the Magnificent Mile and other attractions in the area around One Superior Place. Another tour lets prospects “walk” through some of the building’s amenities, including a Whole Foods Market and the 25,000-square-foot club floor, where residents will be able to use a business and conference center, party rooms and a fitness facility.
Finally, another feature will let renters know about opportunities for entertainment, shopping, dining, worship and education in the area surrounding One Superior Place.
Officials at Charles E. Smith, the building’s developer, hope to produce CD-ROM brochures for each of their properties, said Frank Poli, vice president of development.
“(The technology) appeals to the number of high-tech-oriented renters who are attracted to our properties, particularly those in Washington, D.C., our home base, and in Chicago,” he said. “We’re expecting all marketing packages will . . . use this media.”
Also developing a CD-ROM brochure is the 552-unit HighPoint Community in Romeoville, which expects to have a high-tech brochure available to prospective residents in the next three to four months.
“What I envision is almost like a mini-movie . . . an entertainment piece that will convey the information we want to (communicate), but that people will want to watch all the way through,” said Katie Tolbert, marketing director for HighPoint Community. “We have the capability to produce it here, in-house, without going to a third party, so we might even do a test.”
The CD-ROM brochure will likely include 360-degree viewing of apartments, as well as videos of such HighPoint amenities as the 27,000-square-foot community center, which offers a fitness area and spa.
“This will allow us to really show off our visual assets,” Tolbert observed.
Marketing through CD-ROM technology has great potential for HighPoint, given the community’s ambitious “corporate outreach” program, she added. The CD-ROM brochure will be offered to relocation managers at major corporations in the Romeoville area, who in turn will be able to make it available to prospective transferees looking for an apartment close to work.
While the HighPoint Community CD-ROM is being developed, work is proceeding on another CD-ROM that will be used by all other Marquette Management properties. This CD-ROM will enable each of the other Marquette communities to insert their own photography, text and videos, in effect customizing the disk to each property.
Tolbert believes that CD-ROM brochures are likely to be cost-effective marketing tools for HighPoint Community and other Marquette communities. Noting figures that indicate that as many as 80 percent of the prospective tenants who receive printed brochures don’t read them, she believes CD-ROMs will actually be used.
“The reproduction of these (CD-ROMs) is very inexpensive,” she added, noting that HighPoint Community’s four-color printed brochures cost the company $2 to $3 each, and that CD-ROMs could run as little as $1 apiece at Marquette, depending on the volume produced.
The Chicago market isn’t alone in plans to use CD-ROMs to promote apartments. For example, Avalon Towers, a luxury apartment community in San Francisco that began preleasing last month, will soon have a CD-ROM brochure.
Terri Norvell, president of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Norvell Associates Strategic Marketing and Management Consulting, which is helping develop the CD-ROM, says the technology is appropriate for both the apartment building and the San Francisco market.
“The property is located in an eclectic location that’s undergoing a renaissance, between the financial district and `Multimedia Gulch,’ ” Norvell said. She added that San Franciscans’ familiarity with computer technology is evident in the fact that her research shows the area ranks first nationwide in the number of renters finding apartments through the Internet.
“It’s amazing how many apartments are being rented over the Internet sight unseen,” she remarked. “The CD-ROM takes away one level of fear (about renting through the Internet), in that (renters) can actually touch something about the property. It humanizes it a little bit.”
Avalon Towers’ CD-ROM brochure will be distributed through direct mail and by an outside corporate sales representative. “It will be a very targeted marketing effort,” Norvell said. “I don’t know that everyone has to have one.”
Will CD-ROM brochures eventually take over the marketing task traditionally played by printed brochures? No one, including Norvell, is quite sure. “The jury’s still out,” she said. “(The success of CD-ROM brochures is) going to be driven by a few test cases, and seeing how effective it is. If it leases apartments, it will fly, and lots of people will be doing it.”
