Era Real Estate: ERA SUPPORTS THE HOMELESS

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Integrated Media

Advertiser: ERA BELGIUM

Product/Service: REAL ESTATE BROKER

Agency: 10 ADVERTISING

Date of First Appearance: Nov 1 2009 12:00AM

Entrant Company: 10 ADVERTISING, Antwerp, BELGIUM

Copywriter: Olaf Meuleman (10 advertising)

Art Director: Gertjan Kuijvenhoven (10 advertising)

Strategy: Geert de Craen (10 advertising)

Account Managers: Anke Berckmans/Barbele Walraet (10 advertising)

Director: Steven Cuypers (De Actievist)

Photographer: Evert Thiry (Evert Thiry)

Media placement: TV - In TV Programme Huizenjacht - 14/11/2009

Media placement: Print - Newspapers, Brochures, POS - 01/11/2009

Media placement: Online - Real Estate Website Zimmo - 01/11/2009



Results and Effectiveness

The response was great. After only one month, the website received more than 30,000 visitors, public donations for more than €20,000, and we reinforced the brand image with this social mission. And all this with a media spending of €0.



Creative Execution

We collaborated with a popular TV programme: ‘Huizenjacht’, a show about people looking for a house. We added an item to that programme, looking just like any other ‘Huizenjacht’ item: the real host of the programme and exactly the same style. But the house they visited in our item was a cardboard box! They discuss it as if it were a real house: property surface, neighbourhood, rooms... because for thousands of Belgians, this really is a house.

Beside this, we did an online and print campaign. This cardboard box was also offered in ERA’s traditional communication about their houses for sale, in brochures, ads and in the shop windows. We collaborated with a big real-estate website. On every search, a cardboard box appeared in the list of search results. It was presented just like a real house.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

ERA Belgium is a real-estate broker who understands the importance of a home. So we decided to do something for those who don’t have one: 20,000 homeless people in Belgium. ERA supported them with a donation for every house sold.