How do you sell luxury condos in the middle of a real estate crash? One Los Angeles PR firm has decided to hire Depeche Mode for a Hollywood street concert.
Playa del Rey PR firm Macy & Associates is organizing events to promote the opening of W Hollywood, a $350 million luxury hotel and condo building. The theme is the Next Golden Age of Hollywood.
The grand opening will come this fall, but developer Gatehouse Capital has already started selling condos. So the festivities will begin Thursday with a concert by Depeche Mode at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, near the main entrance to W Hollywood. Portions of the street concert will be broadcast that evening on the ABC show “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Macy is producing the event in partnership with 1 Iota, a concert planning company, and the ABC program.
“W Hollywood is the catalyst for the second golden age at Hollywood and Vine,” Marty Collins, chief executive of developer Gatehouse Capital, said in a statement. “It is a flashpoint for the return of a lifestyle rooted in Hollywood’s legacy as the global center of entertainment and glamour.”
Scheduled for completion in November 2009, W Hollywood will include 143 upscale condominiums, a 305-room hotel and luxury retail stores.
Times may be tough in the real estate market, but W is in a class by itself, said Chris Egger, a principal at Macy.
“The sales momentum hasn’t been as strong as it would have been three years ago, but it has traction,” Egger said. “This is not real estate sold on a price-per-square-foot basis. This is about a lifestyle, not a commodity.”
Macy & Associates specializes in real estate and professional services.
Clear Secret
Secret Weapon Marketing in Santa Monica has won the role of lead creative agency for Clear, which will provide wireless Internet service on a citywide scale.
Clear is the latest brainchild of cell-phone pioneer Craig McCaw. The technology allows Internet connection over an area as large as an entire city; most Wi-Fi services cover only “hot spots” or neighborhoods.
Secret Weapon handled a test campaign in Portland, Ore., that started in January. Based on that success, the agency will now introduce Clear in Atlanta and Las Vegas in the next two months.
Secret Weapon beat out the New York office of Ogilvy & Mather for the account.
Media for the campaign included TV, radio, magazines, billboards, park benches, gas-station signage and even posters in bathroom stalls all to reinforce the message of Internet access anytime, anywhere.
‘Latinas in Charge’
Accentmarketing, a West L.A.-based Hispanic ad agency, has released the first part of a research project titled “Latinas in Charge.”
The project combines findings from focus groups in Los Angeles and Miami; analysis from SocialQuest, another L.A.-area company headed by clinical psychologist Monica Torres; academic research; and guidance from Accentmarketing’s three Latina partners.
The goal is to help marketers overcome stereotypes about Latinas as consumers. Marketers can download summary results at Accentmarketing’s Web site or they can arrange for a presentation by the agency.
The first installment of findings covers Latinas’ attitudes toward financial services. The second part, scheduled for release this summer, reports on Latinas and health care.
The project was designed for Accentmarketing clients, which include L.A.-based Farmers Insurance for the financial portion of the study and Kaiser Permanente for the health care findings.
Dancing Pumas
Agility Studios, a small digital production company in Hollywood, has launched a Web series called “The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers” with Puma footwear as the sponsor.
Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, or LXD, is an elite group of performers that will eventually appear on TV and film, online, at live events and on the labels of licensed merchandise. The first step, a series of scripted videos, will appear on the LXD site during the next two months.
The dancers all wear Pumas and the shoes will be integrated into stories.
The series “gives Puma a unique way to touch the dance,” said Paul Gautier, global head of international marketing for the shoe company.
Accounts & Agencies
Amy Levy Public Relations Inc. in West Los Angeles has added three new clients: shoe and handbag company Gydja Collection; home massage service Kindle Massage; and the Give to Live Foundation/I Am Hollywood Pictures, an organization focusing on cutting the U.S. suicide rate in half by 2017. Independent ad shop David & Goliath has hired Amanda Andre as associate planning director for the agency’s Hispanic division, D & #324;G. She will be responsible for strategic planning for clients such as Kia Motors as well as growing the division. Previously, Andre was at Conill/Saatchi & Saatchi in Torrance, where she worked on the Toyota Camry account. Leticia Lopez is the new media director at Inter/Media Advertising in Encino. She brings 20 years experience in media metrics, most recently at RPA Inc. in Santa Monica. She will work with Inter/Media clients that include the U.S. Army and video game publisher Ubisoft. CCG Investor Relations in Westwood has opened an office in San Francisco and hired Steve Pavlovich to head the operation. Pavlovich is the former director of investor relations at Hewlett-Packard Co. Digital production house Ascent Media in Santa Monica has two new editors, Michael Elliot and Lucas Eskin, who specialize in commercials. Hollywood PR agency Levine Communications Office has added Abby Oliver to its lineup of entertainment publicists. She previously worked in the music industry at Shock Ink and Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.
