A story about connections, bravery and oatmeal. “Like most ideas it began with a solid strategy…” No, sorry Murray White, I’m telling the story [ed]. Let’s start again.

CHAPTER 1. BRAVERY:

It began with one of those things that every adperson dreams of having and so few ever do – a client who said, “We want something really creative,” and didn’t mean, “We want something like we’ve had before.”

“We just couldn’t have done it without them?” White interjects. And I answer, “Whoa.”

The solid strategy, however, led to a solid discussion…

• about what the client wanted – to be more than just a listings site…
• about what property means to the average Aussie – it’s everything we want and much of what we want to talk about…
• about what the brand stands for – it’s “Australia’s number one property site”.
• and about what people wanted from it – confidence when looking to buy or sell a home.

And that led to solid theme, Australia lives here.

The next day one of BWM’s teams, Jake McLennan and Cam McMillan, had a solid idea. “Let’s use Arnie.”

While White tried to get his head around what that meant, they continued…“Arnold Schwarzenegger confuses Austria with Australia and the more he discovers, the more the audience discovers. We’ll build a story that unfolds in parts and lets the audience find out all the capabilities of the site for themselves with him.”

They paused while White had an aha moment, which the pair misread as rejection. White was thinking that the idea had hit the postioning statement on his wall dead centre.

“But we’ll never be able to do it,” they sighed.

“Yes – we- will,” he said.

And the three men started writing. They wrote seven ads. That’s a lot of ads.

(Remember this is a brave client)

And the client loved them.

(I told you)

Oh…and, White promised he could get Arnie to clinch the deal, which at the time was tap dancing on very thin ice – but hell, who hasn’t?

CHAPTER 2.  CONNECTIONS:

White knows a guy called Rupert Maconick. He’s an EP to the stars (Lopez, McCartney…). So White called Mac.

And Mac called John Hamburg. He’s a director who makes stars (Meet the Fockers, Meet the Parents, Zoolander…)

And Hamburg called Arnie…

…to be continued…(below the pic)

CHAPTER 3. OATMEAL:

…And Hamburg said to Arnie, “Let’s do breakfast.”

As it turns out, in Arnie’s idea of doing breakfast, he makes oatmeal while a director, in this case Hamburg, pitches a project to him.

“Love it,” Arnie said. He didn’t mean the porridge. He meant the simplicity of the premise.

With that, Arnie was on board.

So 7 x Real Estate Australia ads were shot ½ in Hollywood (2 days) and half in Melbourne (2 days).

This is one of them:

REA pitched in and lent its hand (with a very big reach) to help create the social and PR campaign that got the ball rolling – or in adspeak, achieved interest and attention – before the TVC launch.

The OOH campaign launches on August 11.

And Murray White wants to thank his producer, Luisa Peters, who got Arnie, his crew of 20 years, the rest of the 50 on set, three very connected creatives, two agency creatives and the bravest clients ever, all working together in harmony.

THE END