Nowhere in the world has an SMME been able to access major billboards in prominent locations before – but local proptech innovators Flow have handed estate agencies and individual agents the opportunity to mix with major global FMCG brands in the Digital Out of Home (DOOH) space, at a fraction of the cost.
Having embarked on a mission to revolutionise the real estate industry by harnessing the power of social media to match agents, buyers and sellers, Flow’s next step allows agents to own space in hotspots across South Africa to promote their brands and individual properties to millions of commuters, every day.
“Traditional billboards are booked months in advance, require creative teams to conceptualise and design them, an agency to produce the massive physical print and a media buying agency to book space,“ says Flow Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Gil Sperling. “That has made accessing them prohibitively expensive to anyone except multi-million Rand corporations, but by aggregating the supply side of these DOOH boards, we’re able to offer agents and agencies digital advertising at a cost-effective price point, in the form of a 10 second video clip”. Agents have complete control of creative via Flow’s best-practise templates and can change their creative as and when they like during their short-term contract period, with a few simple clicks.
The first four Flow DOOH billboards are situated in Johannesburg and Pretoria: In Johannesburg on Helling Road, targeting traffic from Illovo towards the Sandton CBD and in Sandown on Grayston Drive, targeting traffic from the M1 towards the Sandton CBD and in Pretoria, in Newlands on Lois Avenue, targeting traffic from Waterkloof Ridge towards Menlyn Shopping Centre and in Menlyn on Atterbury Road, targeting traffic from Faerie Glen towards Menlyn Shopping centre and the N1 highway.
Forward-thinking Estate Agency Brand RealNet Properties is running a recruitment campaign in Pretoria East, while Airbnb management firm Reserved Suites is running a campaign in the heart of Sandton, using the Flow digital billboards. RealNet Properties MD Gerhard Kotze says the agency has taken a DOOH leap forward by being able to access the dynamic billboards quickly and efficiently. “Taking digital real estate advertising into the physical world at cost-effective rates delivers huge value – especially because it makes it accessible to our whole group, no matter what the budget of our franchisees,” he says.
“By combining the use of digital billboards with the Flow online platform, agents can now laser-target their market online – and on-street. Flow continues to build out various channels that are enabled via its platform, empowering property players to gain maximum reach and exposure,” says Flow Co-CEO & Co-Founder, Daniel Levy. “This is a quantum leap for the real estate industry in South Africa and a fine example of our mission – to use technology to take an incredibly fragmented industry into the 21st century”.