Model Family

Visitors to a model home in a California housing development are in for quite a surprise when they turn the doorknob:

As shoppers stepped through the front door of the largest model home, a barefoot affable man in his 30's shouted hello from the kitchen and offered juice to the buyers' children. His "wife" — slim, blonde and agreeable — pressed them to try some fresh-baked cookies. Their "children," 12 and 14, offered to show the visitors their rooms. A birthday card was propped on the mantel, and a chocolate layer cake with blown-out candles sat on the speckled granite countertop.

In truth, this cheerful family of four was a group of professional actors — paid to show buyers how life could be in the house, which is one of 166 units planned by Centex Homes of Dallas.

That's right: going beyond mere staging of props around the house to suggest the presence of the ideal American family, the development's marketers hired one (albeit a fake, target-marketed one). Someone's having a birthday party, and you're arriving just in time to celebrate.

The fundamental principle of staging a house, she said, is to encourage buyers to "mentally move into the home." The standard methods include painting, putting a wood floor in the living area and adding carpeting in the back bedrooms.

Adding actors, she said, "could be a sort of turn-off," and if the staged family did not reflect the family structure of the shoppers, it could limit the number of buyers. She warned that "it makes the home-buying experience a spectacle, and it may work against the final sale of the home."

Mr. Garfield, the publicist for Milestone, said that a couple of factors mitigate those issues. "You aren't going to see their clothes hanging in the closets; these are still fresh new houses," he said. "Think of it as a docented tour, or Williamsburg village."

Buyers admit that it was things like freeway access, and not the actors' performance (officially called "Homelife") that was primary in their minds when they made their big purchases. Still, the spectacle helps the development stick out in visitors' minds:

In that sense, the production has worked. By the day of the performance at Centex, Gabriella Pitoni and her family had toured model homes in four developments over two weekends. Ms. Pitoni, 36, lives in Santa Clarita with her husband and two daughters, and the family wants more space. "It was surprising," Ms. Pitoni said of the performance. "You don't expect to see anybody here. It was very welcoming."

"Home theater" takes on a whole new meaning. Does this mean the promotional video is becoming obsolete?

Comments

[Sonia]

Weird.

[Debby]

Creepy. And though the buyers may have claimed that the advertising technique didn't force their decision, the bottom line about advertising is always that it works. Successful advertising ALWAYS sways decisions, or else no one would pay for it.