KB Home
First-Time Homebuyers Seminar
Summary
KB Home, a Fortune 500 Company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is one of America’s largest homebuilders, specializing in homes for entry-level buyers. We have worked closely with the San Diego division marketing team for many years, coordinating community grand openings and special events as well as ongoing media relations.
While our 2001 PR program was very successful in many ways, we decided we were ready to take the program to the next level in 2002. Our objective was to move beyond just community grand opening publicity and look for opportunities for more substantial stories to help position KB Home as an industry leader, as well as reach the first-time homebuying audience. Because KB Home specializes in homes for entry-level homebuyers, we wanted to create an educational component to our public relations program, letting people know how to get into the housing market despite the high cost of living in San Diego. (San Diego is ranked the ninth most expensive housing market in the nation.) We decided to develop a free, first-time homebuyer seminar that would be open to the public that would be strictly educational (non-promotional) in nature. We assembled the following panelists to provide a well-rounded perspective on the issue:
Media relations would be an important component of the program. While there was a finite number of attendees KB Home could accommodate at the actual seminar, we needed to communicate the messages of the seminar to a much larger audience. Knowing that housing topics were very “hot” in the news in the recent weeks and months (due to several reports on rising housing prices and a very small percentage of local residents being able to afford a median price home), we believed we had a strong story to offer. Additionally, we would time it shortly before “Tax Day” (April 15) for extra media appeal. We would utilize a combination of pre-event, in-studio interviews to draw attendees to the seminar and day-of-the-event coverage to expand our messages to the larger community. We would focus on television media, which we’ve found to be the most successful in reaching a large audience and driving traffic to the new home communities. (This was a unique opportunity for us, since the nature of the client’s business usually lent itself more to business and real estate press, with broadcast media being a much tougher sell.)
Results
The results were far better than any of us could have even anticipated. Over 130 guests attended, although the client originally thought 60 was an ambitious goal. KB Home had to move the event to its lobby area to accommodate the larger group. We coordinated two in-studio interviews leading up to the event (one which included both KB Home and our other client, CCCS) with top-notch coverage positioning them as local housing experts and boosting awareness of the seminar. The day of the event, we had three more TV station crews in attendance – bringing up our total to five out of the six local (network affiliate and independent) stations covering our event, some with multiple airtimes (total audience: over 180,000). (This on a Saturday morning, when there is typically a skeleton crew available at the stations.) The seminar and resulting media coverage met several PR goals, including positioning KB Home as market leader/expert and reaching first-time homebuyers. The local marketing manager and division president were so delighted with the results that KB Home’s corporate offices in Los Angeles circulated the project company-wide as a “Best Practice” in public relations. Several weeks earlier, another division had attempted the same type of seminar, which was a complete flop. Several executives from KB Home’s corporate offices were in town for our seminar and were really impressed. The corporate PR department wanted to know “how’d we do it!?” The San Diego division is currently preparing a national presentation on the success of the program for other markets to follow. KB Home plans future homebuying seminars in San Diego, and will include CCCS as a partner (they were thrilled with the new relationship we helped create with them.) The media coverage was added to our ongoing “Public Relations Scorecard” (which we use to “score” our PR results for our client), further demonstrating our commitment to quantifiable results and return on investment. The scorecard has also been recognized by KB Home’s corporate office as a “Best Practice.”