Property gets personal in Singapore

As Singapore's property developers continue their aggressive push to position the island state as a Riviera-like destination for the moneyed elite, marketers and their agencies are borrowing a few tactics from the luxury brand playbook to activate high-end property sales among a notoriously fickle audience.

Recent months have seen successive successful launches of premium properties at the luxury end of the market, including the St Regis, Cairnhill Crest, BLVD, Beacon@Cantonment and Oceanfront.

For many of these developments, above-the-line work has become secondary; despite healthy creative budgets, the real action happens prior to the rollout of the marketing campaign, at soft launches which are more likely to resemble luxury brand loyalty offerings.

During the soft launch of St. Regis Residences, for example, by City Developments Limited (CDL), potential buyers were chauffeured to visit the extravagant show suites, which reportedly cost over S$6 million (US$3.8 million) to furnish.

"Showrooms for a S$3 million unit will be dressed to look like it's worth S$10 million. You'll find premium furniture, chambermaids, maybe a wine sommelier — all very refined touches to give each potential buyer a singular experience of luxury," says Mark Wong, managing director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Singapore — the agency behind the St. Regis.

At this year's Oceanfront project, another premium CDL development, 85 per cent of the units were sold in the first four days, before the Publicis-created advertising campaign had even launched, leaving most of the print and TV work to carry its branding message across to a more mass audience two weeks later.

According to one property agent, premium developers like CDL leverage a customer database of previous buyers and will easily spend thousands to attract these individuals first, as "they are consumers who usually want to be the first to own something" and, if treated properly, often buy more than one unit at a time.

Given the soaring sales in high-end residential property, the tactics appear to be working. Despite escalating prices, sales of high-end residential properties are up by almost 10 per cent in the first half of 2005, year-on-year, fuelling a corresponding spike in monitored adspend, even if below-the-line figures are unavailable.

For the agencies and clients involved in this process, one factor has become apparent: the need to present an exclusive, personalised lifestyle offering to capture the attention of the super-rich.

"Most of these buyers are a very traditional moneyed elite," explains Wong.

Wong adds that most super-luxe properties will not hesitate to fly a sales agent to a potential buyer's home to stage an exclusive sales pitch for foreign investors — who account for 45 per cent of super-luxury purchases this year, according to property consultancy Colliers. Another common practice according to one property agent, is to issue a pair of plane tickets and five-star hotel accommodation, all expenses paid, to woo serious buyers.

"Whether the buyer is local or overseas, the key is to keep the marketing strategy extremely personalised and focused on small, niche markets," explains Sarah Jane Smith, marketing communications manager at SC Global, the group behind Blvd and Cairnhill Crest.