By Petr Navovy | Social Media | April 17, 2019 |
By Petr Navovy | Social Media | April 17, 2019 |
Sigh.
I really have conflicting feelings about posting this damn thing.
Basically, there’s an Australian real estate ad that’s gone viral overnight. It’s a ridiculous thing. Completely ridiculous. And it’s clearly engineered to be ridiculous, to hit all the little sweet spots that the internet likes to pick up on, in an effort to reach as many people as possible. It’s cheesy, overlong, cringe-inducing—all those little beats it hits, if it hit them unintentionally then maybe there’d be some joy to be found here. But no. This bloke who’s made the ad knows 100% what he’s doing. So it just leaves like the worst, empty feeling in your gut, like a meal that tasted sweet but then didn’t just not fill you up, it actually somehow sucked already-absorbed nutrients out of your system. And by re-posting it I’d just be playing right into his hands. But also I feel that as an internet writer it’s kinda my job to post it?
So I’m just so conflicted. Because on the one hand, f**k estate agents. And f**k ads. And triple f**k nakedly manipulative campaigns that combine the two things.
But on the othe han-…ah f**t it, here it is:
Sure enough, as per The Guardian:
Real estate agent Sam Nader told Guardian Australia he had prepared multiple videos for his properties, and was happy with the attention.“I just wanted to do something different in the industry, and it really, really worked,” he said. “I did one for a house in Illawong and it broke the record for the area. $3,205,000, sold before auction.
“Video gets attraction to the property, and the whole point of real estate is to get as many eyes as possible on the property. It was supposed to be funny. Whether it’s funny, it’s rude or its sexy, every video I do is different.”
Nader, who has been a real estate agent for 12 years, said he always used a different cast of hired dancers and actors for each video.
Here’s some goddamn Twitter reactions, straight out of Real Estate Agent Sam Nader’s playbook:
LJ Hooker Bankstown taking real-estate videos to a whole new level 🤣 pic.twitter.com/YIHAdZqTJE
— Basil Zoccali (@BasilZoccali) April 17, 2019
when you wanna sell a house based on how good it'd be as a location for a 50 shades of grey film pic.twitter.com/Y1baBx755i
— ur m8 raddles (@angharadyeo) April 17, 2019
"So, we think you'd be great for the dance company but-"
— Wes Mountain (@therevmountain) April 17, 2019
"The real estate ads?"
"Look, we've all had to to do them, there's nothing to be ashamed of."
Screen Australia need to fund a feature length version of this crazy suburban romantic spy thriller musical immediately. https://t.co/ZZw1rcDlRe
— Jason Di Rosso (@jdrrr) April 17, 2019
Oh my: this is the perfect video for the late cycle phase of the Australian housing bubble https://t.co/1Wk9P0R7Xr
— John McDuling (@jmcduling) April 17, 2019
Oh but hang on a minute! A little twist in the tale, as apparently the real estate company has now ‘apologised’ for the ad:
UPDATE: LJ Hooker has *apologised* for the sexy Padstow video - says it "missed the mark" and has been "taken out of context by some"
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) April 17, 2019
what context??? https://t.co/xCmjn4WzrP
Uh huh. You must be hating this gargantuan level of publicity eh.
What strikes me most is that nobody seems to be picking up on the strangest part of this Aussie real estate ad. That Beto O’Rourke homage.