Irvine Company is stepping up advertising for its apartment division.
The Newport Beach-based real estate company, which owns and operates about 115 apartment complexes in Orange County, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and San Diego, is promoting its apartment Web site in TV commercials and ads on empty store fronts at its shopping malls.
“We’re definitely working out the best way to optimize our marketing mix,” said Nicole Conniff, senior director of marketing for apartments at the company.
The apartment division is advertising its Rental-Living.com on local cable including during Monday Night Football and college football games.
Commercials also are running on video screens at gas station pumps.
A direct mail campaign with Florida’s Valpak Direct Marketing Systems Inc. mailers recently ran.
Irvine Co. also is doing online commercials for each of its complexes. About 45 of them have online videos as part of their profiles on Irvine Co.’s Web site.
Plans are to eventually have videos for all of the 115 properties.
“We’re producing them ourselves and we’re hoping to have another 20 communities up by Thanksgiving,” Conniff said.
The company might use the videos as TV spots on cable, she said.
Rental-Living.com and another site for residents were designed by San Diego-based LJG Partners Inc. and developed by Arizona’s Sitewire Marketspace Solutions LLC.
The company looks to play its apartment division off others with marketing for the site in Irvine Co. shopping malls. It also tries to drive apartment dwellers to its malls.
Rental-Living.com allows po-tential residents to place a hold on an apartment and prequalify for a lease online.
The company said it has seen a third of people who put a hold on an apartment online convert into a lease, Conniff said. Almost two-thirds who prequalify online also convert to a lease, she said.
Coast Redesigns Again
Coast has done another redesign of the monthly magazine and Web site.
The magazine, part of Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc.—parent of the Orange County Register—is using advertisers more as resources in stories.
That allows readers to, say, find out where to get what a model is wearing, said Erin Zilis, vice president of Freedom Specialty Media and publisher of Coast.
“We’re borrowing a lot from the online world,” she said.
The changes are part of the October issue.
Coast is the flagship of the Freedom’s magazine division, which produces other monthly and quarterly magazines.
The magazine targets homes in Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and other areas along the coast. It competes with Emmis Communications Corp.’s Orange Coast Magazine and Modern Luxury Media’s Riviera.
Coast changed the format of the magazine in 2008 to include bigger pages and a monthly section highlighting design and decor called Coast at Home.
The magazine’s Web site is being expanded with five blogs and online videos referenced from the print edition.
Coast is looking into an application for iPhones and other smartphones, according to Zilis. The magazine still is in the early phases of its mobile plans, she said.
“There are a lot of applications out there and we’re trying to figure out what works best for a regional magazine,” Zilis said.
She joined Freedom last year after former Coast publisher Chris Schulz left to run Malibu-based CurtCo Media Labs LLC’s Gulfshore Media divisions.
Milk Rock Opera
The San Clemente-based California Milk Processor Board is starting its latest “Got Milk” campaign, which stars starring fictional rock star White Gold.
The TV spots are intended to promote the “Battle for Milkquarious,” a campy, 20-minute rock opera that features White Gold’s quest to save Milkquarious from a milk shortage.
There’s a villain and a love interest, named Strawberry Summers.
One TV spot features White Gold previewing his rock opera and encouraging California teens to recreate scenes from “Battle for Milkquarious” for a chance to win $50,000 for their high school’s arts program.
San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein and Partners is handling the campaign.
