The beauty of social media and mobility is in the expanded universe of opportunities to reach consumers with a branded message. The good news is that digital campaign metrics are much more quantifiable than traditional advertising media such as print ads or television. IMG Digital Group (http://imgdigit.com/) was founded by Matt Gentile, former Global Director of Social Media for the CENTURY 21 brand, Matt is a seasoned marketing professional with extensive experience in developing and leading PR and Social Media teams as well as developing and executing brand marketing strategies. Services: Executive Coaching, Social Media Consulting and Management, Digital Advertising, Public Relations. Marketing services available in both English / Spanish. Matt is a professional presenter who has spoken at industry events including #CZLNY, #CSMNY, #ICNY, #SMMW. To book Matt Gentile to speak at your next event, please email imgdigitalgroup@gmail.com.

1. INTRODUCTION
Before delving into how important it is to
be different in an always-on,
ultra-competitive digital universe, this
paper examines the reasons why it is so
important.
Current growth trends project that over
50 per cent of the world’s population will
have internet access by the end of 2016. In
addition, population and social network
utilisation trends indicate that social media
penetration will soon reach one-third of
the world’s population — possibly as soon
as the end of 2015.1
The growth of mobile devices has made
it more imperative than ever for
companies not only to be on social media
with compelling content, but also to
understand where and when their
audience is consuming media.
Studies suggest that 87 per cent of US
millennials keep their smartphone at their
side, both day and night; 78 per cent of
millennials spend over two hours a day
using their smartphones; and 68 per cent
of millennials consider their smartphone
to be a personal device.2
The beauty of mobile and social media
marketing is in the expanded universe of
opportunities to reach consumers with a
branded message.The good news is that
digital campaign metrics are much more
quantifiable than traditional advertising
media such as print ads or television.The
availability of consumer data through
digital advertising and social media offers a
treasure trove of information for
companies who want to build out detailed
models of their customers’ demographics,
trends and behaviours. Companies
planning their content strategy develop
targets for web traffic, leads, impressions,
reach and engagement.They also look at
demographics and geographic reach, but
᭧ Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2015) Vol. 3, 1 000–000 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing 1
Capturing the consumer in a
constant stream of content
Received (in revised form): 26th March, 2015
Matt Gentile
is the global director of social media for Century 21 Real Estate. Under his direction, Century 21®
Marketing has been recognised with multiple awards including a Gold Stevie Award for its SimCity
Social Marketing campaign, as well as Webby, Andy and Golden Pencil awards for the brand’s Breaking
Bad Social Advertising campaign. Matt also blogs about social media marketing solutions for business
on his own blog, ‘The Social Guy’.
Century 21 Real Estate LLC, 175 Park Avenue, Madison, NJ 07940, USA
E-mail: matt.gentile@century21.com; Twitter: @MattGentile
Abstract The modern world of marketing demands an aggressive digital content
strategy to fill the gaps between mass media ad campaigns. The most obvious way to
expand the universe of opportunities to reach consumers with a branded message is
through mobile and social media marketing. Effective marketing in the digital domain
requires a contemporary voice for the brand and a constant drumbeat of high-quality,
low-cost digital creative, which may live online in perpetuity. This paper describes how to
do this, using Century 21’s Digital Drumbeat strategy as a case in point.
KEYWORDS: Century 21, social media, marketing, digital, real estate, brand, content

2. this is done primarily to stay continually
informed about their audience.
THE BIG BANG
Before social media, people used to
describe the media as a beast that must be
constantly fed. It is now fair to say that
comparing the media environment
pre-Facebook to post-Facebook is like
comparing our knowledge of the universe
pre-Hubble telescope versus what we
know today. Certainly, it seems as though
the media environment will continue to
expand at the same pace.
The volume of digital media being
created is higher than ever and growing.
Already, 500 million tweets are published
every day3
and 300 hours of video are
uploaded toYouTube every minute.4
Meanwhile, according to Nielsen, the
global consumption of digital media is also
rising.5
Today, content is delivered and consumed
through competing delivery platforms,
networks and screens. Never before has
there been this level of fragmentation and
yet, the sum total of media consumed is
growing. In fact, media consumption among
the younger 18–34 demographic has grown
4 per cent overall 2013 to 2014.5
The extraordinary growth in media
consumption due to the explosion in
mobile devices and social media has
dramatically reshaped the marketing and
advertising landscape.This answers the
question of why it is so important to
develop content to make the online
consumer pause long enough to
comprehend the message. Now, the paper
will consider the question of how to create
such winning content.
RE-ENERGISING THE BRAND VOICE
FOR DIGITAL
In 2011, Century 21 sought to re-energise
its brand image, starting with the
development of a new tagline,
‘SMARTER. BOLDER. FASTER’,
which it applied to its national television
spots.The content had a fun, light-hearted
and at times offbeat approach that
appealed to its affiliates, the real estate
industry and the consumer alike.The ads
placed Century 21 affiliated agents at the
centre of the message.
The message was promoted through an
appointment media advertising strategy,
which is to say, a media strategy where
consumers make an appointment to watch
a televised event. Specifically, the campaign
targeted the most-watched sporting events
in the USA, including March Madness, the
Super Bowl, Indy 500, US Soccer, US
Open (tennis), US Bobsled, the Little
League World Series etc, and advertised
during the events or sponsored the teams.
The fact that families gather together to
watch these events in their homes — the
very product that real estate professionals
sell — made it even more attractive and
provided a foundation for the strategy.The
mass media strategy worked.The brand
continues to be the most recognised name
in real estate and the leader in brand
awareness.6
As the media environment has evolved
over the last five years so has the
company’s media strategy.The ability to
reach a mass audience with top-notch
creative is still the most direct route to
move hearts and minds — proof of this
will be evident as television advertising in
the USA takes in record receipts in the
run-up to the country’s next presidential
election. Of course, there are only so
many appointment media opportunities to
reach a mass audience. Century 21
therefore required a more aggressive
digital content strategy for its national ad
campaigns in order to fill the gaps
between these high-profile events.
Fortunately, the organisation began to
hit its stride with regard to social media
management and digital content creation
Capturing the consumer in a constant stream of content
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3. the same year that it kicked-off the
‘SMARTER. BOLDER. FASTER.’
campaign.The content strategy began to
really take shape as more demographic
targeting was used to help better
differentiate messaging by network and
understand the audience. Century 21
conducted an audit of the social networks
where it had a presence, and developed a
standard nomenclature for each of the
channels it elected to maintain and grow
(eg Facebook.com/Century21,
Instagram.com/Century21,
Twitter.com/Century21 etc).To obtain a
profile of the demographic target — single
females between the ages of 25 and 34 —
information from the National Association
of Realtors’ Profile of Home Buyers and
Sellers was combined with in-house
experience.This group represents one of
the fastest-growing segments for home
buying and is very influential in home
buying and selling decisions. Notably, the
volume of web traffic resulting from
referrals from Century 21’s social media
sites increased during this period, as did
utilisation of social media channels in
general.7
This trend enabled the strategy to
flourish by providing a deeper business
context for the investment of effort. By
focusing on driving consumers to
century21.com through a combination of
organic and paid content, it was possible
to make a business case c for investing in
this form of digital marketing.
Increased utilisation of social networks,
mobile communication, gaming and video
consumption has forever altered the media
landscape and opened up opportunities for
content creators and professional
communicators like never before.
Creatively leveraging the ever-expanding
media environment and defining a cogent,
measurable strategy represent the challenge
and opportunity for marketing
professionals looking to move beyond
tactical implementation and into a more
strategic role within their organisations.
One event that altered the course of the
Century 21 content strategy happened on
3rd February, 2013 during Super Bowl
XVII. By now the story has been told over
and over, case studies written and awards
won, but this singular event spawned a
new service offering for marketing firms
around the globe.When the power went
out in the Super Dome, one brand (Oreo)
was ready to make the most of it.The
concept of real-time social advertising is
simple, but the execution of it as a
long-term strategy is much more complex.
The following quote from 360i president
Sarah Hoffstetter demonstrates the
investment in time and stakeholder buy-in
required for success:
‘We set up mission control comprised of
360i-ers, the brand team and MediaVest, so
everyone was ready to create content and
optimise in real time … Once the power
went out, the team immediately recognised
an opportunity and created the image and
caption … It was amazing to have the
clients in the room … They are both brave
and attuned to the need of real-time
response to be successful in today’s media
environment’.8
There are certainly other earlier examples
of real-time marketing and seamless
integration between agency creatives and
corporate executives, but probably none
have driven this much free publicity. One
major success factor was the event itself —
within the USA, no other media spectacle
can compete with the Super Bowl.This
campaign inspired an entirely new form of
advertising that could be done
cost-effectively and generate millions of
impressions.
Within Century 21, the campaign made
the marketing team sit up and take notice,
sparking imagination and inspiring its
agencies.The possibilities in this new
frontier of real-time social advertising were
endless.After discussing the potential, risk
and opportunity with the leadership team,
᭧ Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2015) Vol. 3, 1 000–000 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing 3
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4. the agencies were tasked with developing
real-time concepts to leverage topical
events.The only limitations placed on the
agency were that the subject matter had to
tie back to the home; after all, helping
home buyers and sellers achieve the
American dream is what the company’s
business is all about.
It is important to recognise that creating
campaigns such as these is like trying to
produce a viral video: success is impossible
to gauge until the audience reacts — or
fails to react. It did not take long for this
tactic to pay dividends. On 24th July, 2013
Century 21 welcomed the UK royal
family’s new baby with a meme covered
by the NewYork Times that played off of
Century 21’s Super Bowl ad campaign for
that year.
As the campaigns gained more notoriety
and exposure, Century 21’s Facebook and
Twitter audience began to increase more
rapidly.This increase in audience tied back
to growth in website visits, which drives
more leads to Century 21 affiliated brokers.
From the public relations perspective, the
company’s leadership team was receiving
more requests for commentary from the
marketing and advertising trades, which
supported its efforts to be an industry
leader and enhanced brand preference
among the consumer and the real estate
industry.
For many critics, such ‘news jacking’
efforts have become overdone as brand
agencies flock to leverage the tactic.
Personally, I disagree: as long as brands do
not try too hard to insert themselves into
the news cycle, news jacking is likely here
to stay. It is difficult to quantify the value
of these campaigns, although Shane Snow’s
recent post,‘Data: real-time marketing
during the Oscars is a giant waste of
money’ is as pretty close to developing a
formula that calculates the actual dollar
value of these campaigns. Some of his data
calculations may be contestable, but his
outline of the process is spot on:
‘…how Oreo’s agency got blogs to write
about how clever it was, and got news sites
to write about how many blogs had written
about it, and got Cannes to give them an
award based on how many news sites had
written about that. It was a very clever
exercise in PR momentum. Now the Oreo
tweet—with its “millions of impressions” to
the stories about it—is gold standard for
brands seeking social media attention’.9
As someone who has directed many of
these campaigns over the past two years, I
can attest that bloggers and the marketing
trades definitely act as the tinder to light
the media fire and success in this effort
can make or break a campaign. It is not an
exact science, but it is possible to get a
good feel about what will drive thousands
of views and what will drive hundreds.
The most successful campaigns are those
that involve humour, emotion, or are
completely different from anything else a
competing brand has done. For instance,
Century 21’s ‘Tryptophan Slow Jam’ video
achieved over 100,000 organic views,
whereas its eight ‘Thanksblasting’ videos
attracted fewer than 10,000.The difference
was that the ‘Tryptophan Slow Jam’ was so
out of the box that it attracted media
attention and was deemed ultimately more
shareable by the consumer.
Snow appears to discount the
impressions generated by blogger
outreach; this is where we diverge in
opinion. Marketers buy and sell homes just
like anyone else, and while not every
campaign is going to achieve hundreds of
thousands of impressions, the small
victories do add up and, I would argue,
contribute to enhanced brand preference.
GAMING ACTIVATIONS SHAPE
FUTURE DIRECTION
Another tactic that influenced Century 21’s
future direction and inadvertently acted as a
hedge against over-reliance on news jacking
was the organisation’s entry into the
Capturing the consumer in a constant stream of content
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5. gaming space. In 2012, the brand was
recognised with several awards for
participating in mobile in-game brand
activation. Players in ngmoco’s ‘We City’
were given the ability to purchase branded
structures related to Century 21.These
items included a real estate office, modern
home and skyscraper and earn virtual
‘profits’ in order to expand and advance the
player’s city. In order to secure these
branded gaming pieces, which stay in the
player’s game in perpetuity and were visible
to other players visiting their city, the player
had to watch Century 21’s 30-second
Super Bowl spot.This campaign really
ticked all the boxes with regard to the
company’s overall direction.The entire
campaign cost less than 4 per cent of what
was spent on appointment media buys, and
targeted an entirely new audience —
gamers; in turn, this reinforced the
‘SMARTER. BOLDER. FASTER.’
marketing campaign.The success metrics
were not only impressive, but measurable.
By continuing to take the first-mover
advantage, the brand was able to drive
significant positive publicity coverage.
This campaign was followed up 2013, and
Century 21 again earned multiple marketing
awards by becoming the first and only
national real estate company to set up shop
in ‘SimCity Social’, the popular Facebook
game from Electronic Arts Inc.The in-game
activation enabled the brand to continue
connecting with the next generation of
home buyers and sellers in a new and
exciting way. It also provided a glimpse into
the targeting power of Facebook.The
integration was ideal as it enabled an
in-game branding experience that was well
received by the consumer in one of
Facebook’s most popular games, delivering
virtually the dream of homeownership to
the millions of ‘SimCity Social’ players. In
addition, it provided another great
opportunity to promote the commercials
from the recent television campaign.
The final metrics for the campaign
clearly demonstrate the strength of
in-game brand activations:
• number of Century 21 offices
downloaded into players’ cities: 191,844;
• in-game newsletter impressions:
33,047,259;
• promotional media impressions:
39,497,566;
• media relations impressions: 53,430,670;
and
• proportion of consumers who watched
the entire 30-second Century 21
commercial: 94 per cent.
By July 2013, it was clear that a more
strategic approach to the overall digital
content strategy was taking root through
real-time marketing tactics and the
utilisation of new digital techniques to
map the ‘SMARTER. BOLDER.
FASTER.’ marketing message to Century
21’s digital initiatives.To appropriate the
words of Marshall McLuhan, the medium
in this form of marketing clearly was the
massage. By being on the leading edge of
marketing thought, Century 21’s brand
marketing began to break out of its
category and usher in a new, more
contemporary voice for the brand in the
digital domain. Indeed, one has only to
compare the campaigns of Century 21’s
competitors and large aggregator websites
to see a great deal of similarity. Century
21’s social ad campaigns now feature in a
diverse array of online publications, from
Mashable to GQ to the Huffington Post;
they are no longer covered in real estate
and marketing trade publications. Century
21 has managed to break through and tap
into a level of pop culture relevance that
cannot be said of other real estate brands.
DIGITAL DRUMBEAT SOLIDIFIES
CONTENT STRATEGY
In September 2013, Century 21’s social
media agency sought to create a
᭧ Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2015) Vol. 3, 1 000–000 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing 5
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6. multi-faceted social media campaign
surrounding the end of the ‘Breaking Bad’
television series.What started as a
Facebook post developed into a full-scale
campaign integrating multiple digital
channels, GoogleVoicemail and craigslist.
In short, the agency created a faux real
estate listing on craigslist to market
fictional character Walter White’s home at
the conclusion of the series’ final episode.
As the final episode approached, Century
21 seeded super fan bloggers and
influencers with a few short tweets to let
it be known that the brand had listed the
home of the fictional character.When
consumers linked to the ad, the listed
phone number dialled to a Google
Voicemail message to advise the consumer
that the Century 21 brand recognised
excellence and while Walter White’s home
was not really for sale, the company would
be glad to help them with their home
buying/selling needs.The aim was to
create some buzz and continue to break
the mould of the traditional real estate
marketing model.What resulted was an
extraordinarily well-received campaign
that was honoured with at least a dozen
national and international advertising and
marketing awards including:
• 2014 Interactive Gold Pencil for Social
Media/Branded Social Post: Presented at
the One Show, Gold Pencils are
considered the ultimate achievement in
the advertising world; the brand was
also honoured with a Silver Pencil for
Custom Content.
• Gold International Andy Award: The Andy
Awards have recognised the process of
creativity for 50 years.As one of the
most sought-after honours in
advertising throughout the world, the
award recognises contributions of the
individuals and companies who create
the work and encourages improved
standards of craftsmanship in the
industry.
• Webby Award for Social — Native
Advertising: The Webby is a leading
international award honouring
excellence on the internet including
websites, interactive advertising and
online film and video. It is referred to
by the NewYork Times as,‘The
Internet’s Highest Honor’.
Spearheaded by social-creative agency
leads, Eric Montague and Tim Cawley,
Century 21 executed a concept called
‘Digital Drumbeat’.The concept relies on
the fact that effective marketing in the
digital domain requires a constant
drumbeat of high-quality, low-cost digital
creative, which may live online in
perpetuity. It is not reliant on mass media
advertising, but explores and expands
reach potential using all forms of
digital/social media creatively and
leverages publicity whenever and wherever
possible.
How does the team do it? In the
beginning, campaigns were pitched,
reviewed and approved on an ad hoc basis,
creating some anxious moments in the
approval chain.While real-time marketing
and online gaming activations were
exceeding expectations and winning
critical acclaim, there was no unifying
principle to create a repeatable process.As
a student of systems thinking and
organisational management, it was
important for me to define process.
Today, the programme starts and ends
with a process. Outlining the goals and
objectives of the effort was critical to
formalising the overall structure of this
element of marketing. Establishing tight
timelines for review and approvals
between leadership and legal took some
time to map out and solicit buy-in from
all stakeholders.To mitigate disruption in
the approval chain, it is best to begin to
pipeline content ideas whenever possible.
For instance, the staff know the company
is going to release content on major
Capturing the consumer in a constant stream of content
6 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing Vol. 3, 1 000–000 ᭧ Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2015)

7. holidays and sporting events. By holding
the creative agencies accountable to
consistent timelines for concept review
and approval, this has reduced friction in
the process.A typical approval cycle may
begin with a creative brief from the
agencies on a Tuesday, moving to concept
review and approvals from brand
marketing/legal on Wednesday/Thursday,
concept design and development the
following week, and release of the
campaign in accordance with a schedule
to optimise the campaign’s exposure. For
traditional PR purposes, it is common to
release campaigns on a Monday to
leverage the working week to drive
publicity. In a digital universe, however,
event timing may trump the traditional
news cycle. For instance, to coincide with
the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA men’s
basketball tournament, the Century 21
#DetlefSayMyTweet video series that was
hosted onYouTube and marketed on
Facebook and Twitter was launched on a
Thursday. In planning these campaigns, it
is very important to be considerate of
every stakeholder’s time: one person’s
revolutionary idea is just one more piece
of work for their peers in the review
cycle.While it is optimal to have 15–20
business days to plan and execute this type
of campaign, this is not always possible
(and a lack of planning on your part does
not constitute an emergency for someone
else involved in the approval process). Of
course, some ideas and promotions are
worth fighting for; but taking an idea that
may require a 48-hour or less turnaround
time and involve multiple approvals is no
day at the beach. Pick your battles wisely.
At the heart of Digital Drumbeat rests a
very simple idea; create shareable,
internet-competitive social media
moments through a mix of content
including photos, memes, videos, etc, then
optimise their exposure through a mix of
creative positioning and media promotion.
Marketers must remember that they have
no more than three to five seconds to
capture the consumer as they are
reviewing their content stream on
Facebook, Google+, Linkedin or Twitter.
The last step in the process is to maximise
the campaign’s reach through a cogent
distribution strategy that leverages the
brand’s portfolio of social networks and
hyper-targeted social advertising.As an
example, Century 21 recently released a
new video series called,‘Moved by
Moving’.The videos were posted in an
unlisted mode and placed in a custom
playlist onYouTube as soon as they were
finalised, to be subsequently shared with
system members via the corporate Tumblr
account.The external distribution plan in
this case called for additional uploads to
Facebook throughout the spring as videos
posted natively to Facebook tend to
perform better.The hashtag
#MovedByMoving was used to promote
these videos on Twitter, posted to
Google+ using each video’s custom
YouTube link, and embedded into the
Century 21 Real Estate blog, which is
hosted directly within century21.com.
Creating something that is going to
capture the consumer’s imagination, cause
them to pause long enough to scan, click
and engage through their smartphone is
highly motivating. Great content is about
more than simply filling the channel — it
fills a void in someone’s day. It creates a
lasting impression and leaves them wanting
more.
References
1. Kemp, S. (2015) ‘Digital, social & mobile
worldwide in 2015’, available at:
http://wearesocial.net/blog/2015/01/digital-social
-mobile-worldwide-2015/ (accessed 31st March,
2015).
2. CMO Council (2015) ‘Facts & stats: mobile
marketing’, available at:http://www.cmo
council.org/facts-stats-categories.php?view=
all&category=mobile-marketing (accessed 31st
March, 2015).
3. Twitter (2015) ‘About: Company’, available at:
https://about.twitter.com/company (accessed 31st
March, 2015).
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8. 4. YouTube (2015) ‘Statistics’, available at:
https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html
(accessed 31st March, 2015).
5. Nielsen (2014) ‘Shifts in viewing: the
cross-platform report Q2 2014’, available at:
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/
2014/shifts-in-viewing-the-cross-platform-report-
q2-2014.html (accessed 31st March, 2015).
6. Millward Brown (2014) ‘Brand awareness and
preference’, study conducted on behalf of Century
21, available from the author on request.
7. Pew Research Center (2014) ‘Social networking
fact sheet’, available at: http://www.pew
internet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-
sheet/ (accessed 31st March, 2015).
8. Morrissey, B. (2013) ‘How Oreo won the Super
Bowl blackout’, available at: http://digiday.com/
brands/how-oreo-won-the-super-bowl-blackout/
(accessed 31st March, 2015).
9. Snow, S. (2015) ‘Data: real-time marketing during
the Oscars is a giant waste of money’, available at:
http://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/29/data-
real-time-super-bowl-marketing-is-a-giant-waste-
of-money/ (accessed 31st March, 2015).
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