The conversation about Bloomsbury Estates seems to never end. Some love its “historical references”, while others reject its relevance to 21st century design. Regardless of the opposing opinions, construction continues, move-in is slated for September, and the powers-that-be for the hilltop mansion have released new marketing videos that are sure to entertain at least a few.
Three videos that will serve as tools to entice future buyers surfaced recently on the internet. One of the videos is listed as a TV spot and the other two look to be web-based marketing aids. The TV spot is relatively harmless. It creates an essential, although bland, portrayal of the soon to be finished residential complex, actually showing both towers (only one of which is currently under construction). It is short and concise, lasting a tame 34 seconds.
Contrary to the minimal tv spot, the first of the two web based ads, entitled “Life Without Compromise” is almost 7 minutes long. It repeats a handful of typical sales phrases and becomes quite hypnotic after the first few minutes. It paints a picture of Bloomsbury Estates via audio and visuals that echo a video advert inside of a corporate skyscraper elevator (or dentist’s office) circa 1992. I think I nodded off a couple times while watching. Shouldn’t a marketing ad grab my attention. Oh, yeah (no pun intended) there’s a third video. Maybe that’s the one they are saving all the pizazz for.
As the third video starts, a view of the Raleigh skyline pans across the screen and a familiar and slightly campy song starts. “Oh Yeah! Chiga Chiga!” Text slowly fades onto the screen. “Life on the Edge of Urban” it states. A couple of images of Boylan Heights pan across, then an espresso machine, some folks having martinis, more Boylan Heights, a stock photo of workers clearly not walking down a Raleigh street, and then a couple of nondescript videos of Raleigh bars. The phrases “Live Events”, “Urban Energy”, “Tree-lined streets” and “The City’s Heartbeat” all make an appearance with these images. Then then video abruptly comes to an end.
Bloomsbury Estates - Life on the Edge of Urban
The imagery and text used in all three videos is recycled, with the only difference in the three videos being the audio. From jazz to soft electro, and finally Yello? Yello was an electro-syth band (and quite good one at that) in the 80’s that had few hits, but the few they had are very recognizable. Many of us remember Yello’s song “Oh Yeah” from the end credits of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. There’s something nice and fitting about the use of “Oh Yeah” at the end of this film, which played on Friday at the NC Art Museum. There’s a certain abstract experimental nature about this song that requires a bit of care, even satirical care, when placing it in the context of video. Just look at Yello’s original video for the song and you’ll see an experimentation that can only be replicated by a humorous or stylish replication of this attitude. The Bloomsbury Estates Ad misses this opportunity. Watching Yello’s video, you get it. Watching Bloomsbury Estates’ attempt, you question it.
We’ve seen various attempts at marketing the many new condos that are going up in and around downtown, but this one takes the cake. The video has little style but attempts to throw in a nostalgic soundtrack and photos to attract buyers. With recycled and poorly edited visuals, this marketing campaign is slightly less annoying than Hue’s Crayola Sponsored Video or West at North’s Pardon Me for Living Ads. There are great marketing campaigns and videos out there with a good amount of style. Raleigh’s condo marketing teams could learn a bit from the marketing of the 40 Bond condos, Sigeru Ban’s The Shutter Houses in New York City, OMA’s CCTV complex in China, or the fabulous process based video (keep watching) for the Museum Plaza building in Louisville.
Bloomsbury claims that the estates are “Life on the Edge of Urban, in the Midst of Neighborhood Bliss” with “Killer views, timeless architecture and quality construction. Historic charm with modern convenience.” If so, create a bit of marketing that expresses these issues either logically or stylistically. These ads, especially the latter does neither. It shows a nonchalant attitude of copying and pasting various “needed imagery and audio” into a formula that could attract buyers. The new downtown needs more than this. We need more than martinis (the olive dropped in the glass gets me every time). We need more than the phrases “looking down onto historic bungalows” and “European gardens” to entice new residents. We need more than the schizophrenic metro-retro marketing. We need integration. We need design. We need style...or at least a video artist for your marketing team, Downtown Raleigh already has a handful of those.