How Roberta Helped Mark-Taylor Residential Get its Groove On

As a third-party manager, Mark-Taylor Residential must create strong marketing campaigns that create traffic across a portfolio of architecturally diverse properties and maintain its brand identity as the premier provider of lifestyle-oriented apartment living in the greater Phoenix area. To accomplish this during the prime summer leasing season, the company rolled out a multi-pronged leasing campaign anchored by Roberta, a groovy mascot wearing 1970s-style clothing while rocking to a very 2000s iPod.

To accomplish this during the prime summer leasing season, the company rolled out a multi-pronged leasing campaign anchored by Roberta, a groovy mascot wearing 1970s-style clothing while rocking to a very 2000s iPod.  

Components of the campaign included:

• Weekly pool parties, with radio station sponsorship, at selected Mark-Taylor properties between June 16 and August 26.
• Front-cover and inside-the-book print advertisements in local apartment listing magazines.
• Banner ads and links on Internet listing services, Craigslist, MySpace, Facebook, and others.
• Search engine optimization and paid keywords (KIM: PLEASE CONFIRM.)
• Free iPods and rent concessions.
• Email campaigns telling recipients about the Summer of Love and upcoming pool parties.
• Sign spinners at entrances to properties, each of which had a cardboard cutout of Roberta, Mark-Taylor’s "Dance Diva," to greet prospective renters.
• Moving truck advertisements featuring the quickly-famous Roberta.
• A mid-campaign press release announcing the "kidnapping" of campaign icon Roberta from Mark-Taylor's San Prado property and including a plea for the 6-foot-tall, 52-pound cutout’s "safe return."

The target market? Affluent renters in the greater Phoenix market looking for an apartment home offering on-site social activities, luxurious amenities, and a tradition of personal and thoughtful customer service.

Summary of Achievements
Pool parties. Free iPods. A groovy mascot with her own MySpace page. Who wouldn’t want to live at a Mark-Taylor Residential property in the summertime?

That was exactly the idea for the "Summer of Love," a multi-faced, retro-themed leasing campaign devised by the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm in 2007. And it worked, generating 1,623 new leases between June and August, an average of 541 new leases monthly.

The firm obtained such results through traditional print and new online media. A series of email newsletters promoted the pool parties, producing open rates of 29.7 percent to 49.5 percent and response rates as high as 12.4 percent. New banner ads and links connected Mark-Taylor and the Summer of Love to fresh online sites such MySpace, resulting in 604 referrals. That was the firm's first foray onto the social networking site, and it paid off: MySpace represented the second-highest number of referrals for the campaign's online banner ad/links component. The company Website saw the impact; traffic jumped by 31 percent during the campaign.

"Summer of Love" captured the attention of renters and reporters alike. The Arizona Republic couldn't resist covering Roberta's "kidnapping" from San Prado in Glendale, Ariz. "'Diva' believed to be swept away by worker," read the July 14 headline.

The attention didn't hurt San Prado. The 180-unit property saw its occupancy rate rise by 9 percentage points, to 98 percent during the "Summer of Love" campaign, even besting the company's overall increase of 7 percentage points, to 93 percent occupancy.

• Total Number of Units: 6,816 in 23 properties
• Date Opened for First Occupancy: June 1, 2007 through August 31, 2007 (length of campaign)
• Total Lease-up/Sales Time: 3 months
• Average Absorption or Sales per month: 541 leases per month
• Current occupancy rate: 93 percent portfolio-wide at end of August 2007 (an increase of 7 percentage points)
• Total marketing budget (for what is being nominated; e.g., brochure, interior merchandising, entire campaign): $62,000