By: Kim Tillinghast, Vice President, Edelman AustinEdelman supports a national initiative to shift consumer preference toward new homes versus existing homes for client Builder Homesite, Inc. (BHI), a consortium of 27 of the nation’s largest home builders. Builders Design Experience (BDX) is BHI’s builder-facing, marketing and technology services arm.
In an effort to elevate CEO Tim Costello and BHI as the voice of the category, Edelman cultivated a relationship with Wall Street Journal real estate reporter Dawn Wotapka, offering Costello and consortium builders as spokespeople. During an October media trip to New York, Edelman arranged an in-person meeting between Wotapka and Costello, positioning Costello as a key industry resource and tying in the recently-released September Census data on new home sales. They hit it off immediately, and Costello lent insight and resources to a number of trends Wotapka was researching for potential stories.
Upon learning that Wotapka would be attending the 2013 International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas, the building industry’s largest trade show, Edelman reached out in January to arrange a second meeting. Her schedule was packed, but Edelman managed to track her down and she and Costello spoke at length about a number of topics and trends. When talk turned to the business of upgrades, Edelman arranged an in-booth demonstration of the Envision product, an online design center. Back on home turf, we continued the conversation with Wotapka, granting her site access, statistics and examples.
Ultimately, the story landed on the front page of the Mansion section in print, as well as online, and according to Wotapka, Costello’s insight provided “a really strong paragraph that the story needed.”
The full article can be found here.
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