He’s the ‘Grinch’ who stole the business.
At a time of year when home buyers are distracted by Christmas festivities, a pair of real estate agents have found a way to attract attention and sell properties. Dressing up as Dr. Seuss’s most famous holiday character,
Dennis Matse-Orere, 40, and his wife, Leila, 30 – who run Legacy Property Consultants – had a bright idea to help advertise their listing in December.
He had coworkers dress up as the Grinch and take photos of homes with the famous festive character.
CEO Dennis and marketing head Leela had seen a similar idea done by another firm – with a non-Grinch character.
They decided to try the marketing technique for themselves, but with a special seasonal twist.
They managed to convince a group of their landlords to let them photograph the new property with the Grinch.
Incredibly, the strategy has proven to be a win – some listings have seen an 840% increase in clicks compared to non-Grinch listings.
Londoner Laila said: “I was thinking about how we could make our ads stand out on property portals.
“We saw another agency featuring a panda character in their catalog – and suddenly we had a flood of ideas.
“I said ‘Why don’t we do the Grinch?’ – and Dennis, who doesn’t usually agree to something like this, said ‘Why not?’.”
They reached out to a select number of landlords whose properties they represent in North West and Central London and asked for permission to have their photo taken featuring the Grinch.
Some weren’t keen, but one agreed – and that listing got thousands more views than any of his other listings.
Other landlords soon joined in – and now Legacy Property Consultants owns a range of Grinch properties.
She said: “At first, telling the landlords that we wanted to photograph the Grinch on their property was not the easiest thing.
“But the more we could do, the more examples we had of how well it worked.”
Leela said she and some of her coworkers wore Grinch suits in the spirit of the campaign.
He added: “The figures – it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before. they are crazy.
“We had two or three properties rented within a few hours of posting the listing online.”
