Sector:
Real Estate

Purpose:
To offer a luxury home lifestyle within gentrifying downtown area

Purpose Superpower:
Vibrance

Challenge:
To become the top-selling condominium development in San Diego… during a recession

Problem:
Bayside, a luxury condominium tower developed by Bosa of California, was a new highlight
to the downtown San Diego skyline. Despite its waterfront location and rich set of hotel-like
amenities, Bayside sales were challenged by a recession-plagued luxury condo real estate
market.

The downtown San Diego luxury condo market is highly competitive. There were eight competing luxury condos in the area, many of which had not been fully sold. An additional challenge is that financially-strapped condo owners were either selling their own units or in foreclosure, adding to the burgeoning excess inventory.

With so much competition, traditional marketing efforts, such as newspaper and radio advertising, have been overused, flooding consumers with many similar-sounding choices. Other traditional marketing vehicles – such as open houses and events – often brought in potential buyers, but Bayside’s HOA officers/owners deemed these events inappropriate to their privacy and security. Faced by constraints in traditional marketing channels, Bayside turned to Stuart McFaul to develop a marketing program that would allow the development to promote and differentiate itself to the buying public online.

Solution:
Realizing that Bayside was literally the new “crown jewel” in a highly-desirable neighborhood,
Stuart determined that creating a vibrant air of excitement around both Bayside and its surrounding area would attract potential buyers. We built a social media program under the
promotional theme of “Bayside Living” which jointly promoted the Bayside development
AND the area in which Bayside was located.

Bayside Living was painted as a lifestyle that began within each luxury Bayside condo, extended out into the hotel-like features of the development and reached out into the Bayside “neighborhood”, a new regional designation we created that included the historic Little Italy and Columbia districts, areas that were distinguished by fine restaurants and lounges, shopping, marina bay activities, and theater. Bayside Living presented Bayside owners and wannabe owners with a 24/7 set of constantly-changing living and entertainment alternatives that made Bayside a truly exciting place to live.

The program initially focused on reengineering the BaysidebyBosa.com website. We also built multiple new social media points of presence where people could connect to Bayside, such as a new blog (“Living Bayside”) and new sites on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. For these social media channels, we created a high volume of neighborhood-focused content. Every day, our team would comb local news sites, blogs, event guides, et al to discover anything new within the Bayside neighborhood; this would act as fodder for the blog and our Twitter feed.

To further blur the lines between the Bayside residence and the neighborhood, we launched the “Best of Bayside” Restaurant Competition. For a six-month period, each month featured a different restaurant competition where people could vote online on our blog, on Facebook or Twitter for their favorite Bayside restaurants in different categories (e.g., Best Pizza, Best Sandwiches, Best Specialty Coffee, etc.)

Our team won the support of district merchant’s associations and personally visited each Bayside restaurant to provide them with signage asking patrons to vote for them in the “Best of Bayside” competition. The signs – prominently branded by BaysidebyBosa.com – put the development’s name fore and center in every restaurant in the area.

Each month, a winning restaurant was awarded a plaque naming them as a “Best of Bayside” restaurant, photographed, a press release was issued, and the winner profiled in the Living Bayside blog. Participating voters got the chance to win a $100 gift certificate at the winning restaurant in each month’s competition.

The competition series has proven to be a powerful way to build Bayside’s reputation in the area and tie the development to the community. Restaurateurs referred clientele to the development and the winning restaurants conducted cooking demos at Bayside to build traffic during the traditionally-slow winter months.

Results:
Bayside by Bosa sold out within nine months, becoming not only the fastest-selling condo development in San Diego, but the fastest-selling condo development in California as well. In addition, the neighborhood outreach developed multiple commercial partnerships between Bayside and local businesses, which provided ongoing referrals to Bayside management and additional benefits to Bayside homeowners.