When Southern California real estate started to head south last year, Mark Paolucci decided to head south, literally. He landed a client in La Paz, Mexico, who wanted the marketing services his firm offers.

Paolucci’s public relations and advertising agency, Roddan Paolucci Roddan in Palos Verdes Estates, specializes in real estate and has responded to the domestic downturn by winning contracts for marketing real estate in other countries. Since last year, the company has landed jobs in the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Mexico promoting development projects.

The strategic shift to international customers happened partly by circumstance, but mostly from a strategic decision by the agency’s brain trust. The change in direction grew out of a management retreat in El Segundo in fall 2007.

“Part of the vision that came out of that session was diversification outside real estate and outside the U.S.,” said Paolucci. “When you get a clear vision of where you’re going, events line up and make things possible.”

Then John Laing Homes, a major client, was purchased two years ago by Emaar Properties, the largest real estate developer in the world, headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. As Laing’s employees joined the parent company, one emerged as a champion for RPR and started steering work from Emaar to the agency.

“A big part of John Laing’s creative work was done by RPR, and I felt there was an opportunity to bring that sensibility to international real estate development,” said Joan Marcus-Colvin, a senior director at Emaar Design Studio in Irvine, which does interior design work for the company.

The first job Marcus-Colvin sent to RPR was the marketing campaign for a five-star resort Emaar plans to build on Lombok, an island next to Bali. The island has little name recognition among the international clientele that buys condos in exotic locales, a problem RPR hopes to solve with advertising in travel magazines, billboards on Bali and a Web site.

“The buyers will come from Australia, the Middle East, Asia and Europe,” said Marcus-Colvin. “It’s remarkable for an agency in Los Angeles to work on a market with that geography and demographics.”

Flexibility, research

For other entrepreneurs looking to diversity overseas, Paolucci stresses the need for flexibility and research. Dubai is 11 hours ahead of Los Angeles, so he often has teleconferences at 5 a.m. or late at night.

Marcus-Colvin said the advertising business puts a premium on fancy face-to-face presentations, which aren’t possible when you’re doing business across continents.

“For an agency, it’s important to present ideas in person, but we don’t have the luxury of getting in front of decision-makers in this new global economy,” she said.

Bob Gold, president of PR shop Bob Gold & Associates in Torrance, who has worked with clients in India, South Korea, Dubai and Italy, pointed out that language presents significant risks for PR agencies working globally.

“You have to make sure that ad copy or press release translations aren’t transliterations, but transcreations,” he said. “You can’t just put it through a computer dictionary. Making sure it reflects the key message of the client is critical, and every local market has its own peccadilloes.”

Paolucci has overcome that challenge through careful study of the cultures where he works to understand how to communicate without offense. Also, he sets up what he calls “local filters” people who can read copy and look at photos and explain how they connect to local audiences in every country. Finally, he shows the material to local media planners and magazine publishers who offer additional guidance.

While some small companies think only huge corporations can enter foreign waters, Paolucci maintains that technology has made international commerce surprisingly easy. For example, advertising designed in an L.A. studio can be sent electronically to magazines and print shops around the world. On the accounting side, Paolucci simply e-mails invoices to clients and they wire the money directly to his U.S. bank account.

Soon after winning the Lombok project, RPR landed other foreign assignments, including another Emaar building in Dubai. The company also got the contract to do marketing for Bahia de los Suenos, a 4,300-acre resort hotel and custom home development in Baja California run by L.A.-based PCS Development.

Then the international strategy came full circle as builders in the United States who wanted to attract international buyers came to RPR for that purpose. Lowe Enterprises Inc. in Brentwood has hired the agency to market Terranea Resort, a mixed-use hotel and residential project on the former Marineland property on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Likewise, a company in Canada wants RPR to help market upscale California homes to people in Calgary, Canada, where the spike in oil prices has created a new generation of multimillionaires.

Earlier this month, RPR represented Beverly West Condos, an Emaar-owned tower in Los Angeles, at the Cityscape Dubai trade show.

“Real estate investors and buyers from all over the world descend on Dubai,” Paolucci said. “We’re trying to get buyers to take an interest in L.A. properties.”

Boom times

The agency was founded in 1989 by Brooks Roddan, who later added his wife, Le Ann, and Paolucci as partners. The Roddans are still owners, but Paolucci runs the business day to day.

During the boom of the late 1990s, a typical builder would buy land, design homes and then have RPR put up a Web site. The agency would collect e-mails from site visitors and create a database of interested buyers. When the construction phase neared completion, a quick e-mail blast to the addresses in the database would bring buyers and the homes would sell out in a weekend.

“It was more a job of demand management than demand creation,” Paolucci recalled. “But in late 2006, things reverted back to demand creation because the price point got so high there were few buyers. One thing led to another, and now everybody’s paying the price.”

Foreign markets have a reputation for volatility, and Paolucci has concerns about Dubai, where he estimates real estate accounts for 30 percent of the local economy. Local laws don’t require escrow and a land transfer can occur in less than an hour, he said, and the ease of transactions encourages out-of-control speculation by traders looking to make some quick money.

Paolucci believes the Dubai investors might learn something from the now-bust U.S. real estate bubble.

“It’s a transfer of wealth from oil to real estate,” he said. “But I hope they don’t get so caught up in real estate investment that they forget to build quality homes where people will want to live.”

Roddan Paolucci Roddan

Headquarters: Palos Verdes Estates

Chief Executive: Mark Paolucci

Year Founded: 1989

Core Business: Marketing upscale real estate projects

Employees: 38

Goal: Open offices in Dubai and other foreign markets

Driving Force: The desire for L.A.-style marketing by international real estate

developers, especially in the Middle East and Asia