Advertising on social media gaming is a completely untapped resource for real estate, but, as Century 21 has shown, a highly beneficial one.

By Peter Ricci

Advertising, as Don Draper of AMC’s seminal “Mad Men” famously put it, is based on one thing: happiness. And a new, interesting ad campaign by Century 21 on social media gaming channels seems to have that principle in mind.

As HousingWire recently noted, Century 21 has begun buying advertising space in the popular social media game SimCity Social, a Facebook expansion to the legendary Electronic Arts title SimCity.

Real Estate Advertising on Social Media Gaming

Century 21 is the only national brokerage thus far to advertise in SimCity Social, and though it seems like a strange gambit, there are a number of positives to the approach:

• First off, there’s the popularity of SimCity Social and other social media games. According to the latest estimates, 81 million people play games on social media channels every day.
• The advertising opportunities on social media games like SimCity Social are also very outside-the-box. Though advertising on social media is often relegated to small, obnoxious ads that appear on the bottom of video streams or on the right side of the Web page, the advertising in SimCity Social – a game which, coincidentally, involves players building real estate empires – is more intuitive to the gaming experience.
• Thus, in Century 21’s case, players can build their very own Century 21 office in the game, and watch an in-game commercial from the firm to earn points for their simulated city.
• So far, response to Century 21’s SimCity Social advertising push has been extremely positive, with the brokerage increasing its fan base by 225 percent. In fact, the response was so strong that Century 21 launched an additional campaign on The Sims Social, the social media version of The Sims, the most popular video game franchise of all time; from Dec. 20 to Jan. 9, players can install a Century 21 fireplace in their virtual home.

Go Where the Millennials Are

Beyond the popularity of social media gaming, there is another, even more potent benefit to advertising on the medium – it’s where the Millennials are. The majority of social media gamers, as HousingWire points out, are aged 25 to 34, but even beyond that age group, social media gaming is poised to form the crux of the online experience for the entire Millennial population, which is estimated to top 95 million at its peak.

And as Trulia found in its latest American Dream Survey, Millennials love the concept of homeownership. In the survey, 93 percent of Millennials who currently rent said they plan to purchase a home some day, and 72 percent of the entire demographic (again, a demographic that will approach 70 to 90 million) consider homeownership to be a part of their American Dream.

So with all that in mind, the question becomes a straightforward one: why not advertise on social media gaming channels?