Guess the Property Price

I bumped into the radio ads of the three real estate portals in the month of September 2013. Switching stations during commercial breaks did not help escape these ads. The two of them that grabbed my attention were 99 acres and IndiaProperty. 99acres was about 99 property tips with each ad unit being a knowledge nugget for property investors, whereas IndiaProperty took an advergaming route. 

What’s it all about?

Indiaproperty’s ad urged the listeners if life is about guessing one thing or the other, than why not guess the price of a property in the advergame, ‘Guess the Property Price’, hosted exclusively on Fever 104 FM Bangalore (Karnataka, India).

How to play Guess the Property Price?

The listeners register by texting, FEVER<space><Their Name> to 9986 104 104

Game Play

Two listeners are chosen by the Radio Jockey (RJ) and are pitted against each other on-air. The RJ introduces both the participants to the listeners and starts the game by describing the property. The property elements described by the RJ are, name of the builder/developer, name of the property, location, size of the dwelling unit (for example, 2BHK having an area of 1260 square feet) and amenities.  The first participant takes a shot at guessing the price followed by the second participant. The RJ gives the option to the first participant to revise the guess followed by the second participant. The RJ then reveals the property price and the participant whose guess is closest to the actual price, wins the game.

What’s the Prize?

The prize is valued at INR 1,000.00/-

What’s the big deal?

The number of Google search results against the query ‘Guess the Property Price’ suggests that the idea is beaten to death. However, I did not come across any webpage, which suggested radio as a medium for the game. So is it a first on radio, perhaps not.

Circa 2004, my pitch to brands while suggesting them advergaming solutions from a pioneering advergaming portal of India (contests2win.com) was, ‘if it is just an ad in a medium, the time spent with the brand equals the duration of the spot or length of the copy, but turn the communication into a game, and you have an engaged, sticky audience. Unleash the intrinsic gamer within your target audience’. The big deal is perhaps this insight used by IndiaProperty.

I can speak for myself, though I was not at all interested in the property being described by the RJ or had any intention of buying it, but I can still recall name of the property and its price. It’s not bad given the fact that it has been over two weeks since I first heard about the property on the advergame.

Advertising opportunities?

The segment is sponsored by Indiaproperty.com.

What next?

I believe it will be more interesting if an additional winner is chosen from the listeners who do not make it on-air, but have texted the right answer before the price reveal by the RJ.

What else?

Mentioned above is what met the ‘ear’. What intrigues me is:

Who pays whom, – Is it co-op advertising? Can one assume that a part of the campaign budget is booted by the builders/developers whose projects feature in the daily question? This also begs a related question—who sponsors the prizes—Indiaproperty.com or the builder/developer whose property is featured in the daily question.

The choice of property in the daily question, – What is the criterion of picking up a specific property to feature in the daily question? Is it the past campaign of the project on this station? Or is it the properties from builders/developers who have committed good advertising dollars to get a featured listing on Indiaproperty.com?

So what do you think? Please share your valued experience and thoughts, the comments box is just below this line :-)