Dream Town Real Estate wants to light up the night with its new marketing strategy, which is an overhaul of one of real estate’s most ubiquitous tools.
The Chicago-based residential brokerage tapped into its creativity to reinvent a basic concept: the “For Sale” sign. Dream Town will now place for-sale signs that glow at nighttime in front of listed properties, fueled by solar power they collect during the day, Crain’s reported. Dream Town looks to be the first Chicago-area firm to introduce this idea.
“For-sale signs are super dated,” Dream Town CEO Yuval Degani told the outlet. “One of the challenges is, why do they stop working at night?”
The concept works by laser cutting the words “Dream Town” out of the upper portion of a metal sign, with light coming from within the text to shine over a flag that has the rest of the information below. The solar panels will illuminate the signs for up to six hours at night, and results will vary based on sun and shade exposure in each yard.
Degani mentioned that the flashier signs — soon to be in front of every listed property — cost more than traditional signs, but he didn’t mention by how much.
Tim Calkins, associate chair of the marketing department at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, commended the idea, saying it will allow the firm to stand out from the pack.
“There’s real value to that,” Calkins told the outlet, “and it will reflect positively on the brand, that they’re innovative and doing something different to do their job selling your house.”
Dream Town, founded in 1998, has 450 brokers and six offices across the Chicago area. Calkins, who wasn’t involved with the design, predicted other brokerages might follow suit with the glow-in-the-dark sign strategy if Dream Town’s version proves effective.
— Quinn Donoghue
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