Two episodes of the viral documentary Under Offer – a hideous parody of the very worst perceptions of estate agents – have been a huge hit on You Tube and even been picked up in the press, some of whom seemed to believe it was for real.
D&G, well known for its highly original approach to advertising and marketing, wanted to highlight the fact that its lettings teams are ARLA qualified and its sales teams have passed the recently introduced NAEA Technical Award.
Although the NAEA requirement is only one qualified person per office, Douglas & Gordon requires all negotiators to pass this award during their first year – the only agent to provide this training and accreditation across the board.
Ivor Dickinson, Managing Director of Douglas & Gordon said:
“This is obviously a serious point. The industry has really moved on, no one more than D&G. However we all agreed that without an entertaining approach no online audience would really sit up and take notice. What we needed was an almost anti-promotional approach that caused a stir and got people talking, “
D&G enlisted help from Real Impact Productions (a creative division of Real Property Tours Ltd) and the hilarious and at times shocking web series, Under Offer, was the result.
Ivor Dickinson added:
“It was a risky strategy and impossible to do if we weren’t absolutely confident in the quality of our staff and our business.”
The worst estate agents ever were played by actors, Alex Bartram as ‘James’, and Beatrice Curnew as ‘Charlotte’ but D&G staff played an active part as well and it was shot on location at the Hammersmith branch of D&G. To add authenticity ‘James’ was even added to the D&G website.
The series has certainly been a huge hit. It’s been seen in 64 different countries and seen on You Tube over 54,000 times as of yesterday (Thursday 29) afternoon.
