It’s no secret that selling a home is really hard—home improvements, listing, staging, inspections—and still NO guarantee that you’ll get an offer. Opendoor was on a mission to change that. A digital platform that takes all the complexity and uncertainty out of selling—what’s not to love?

But there were a couple of problems: 1. Sellers didn’t know Opendoor exists 2. Amongst those who were aware, consideration was still low. Truth be told, sellers were skeptical.

We had three objectives:

- Improve awareness

- Increase consideration

- Get people to go on Opendoor.com

In the world of real estate, the Super Bowl is considered the unofficial start of homeselling season, a great media moment to get potential homeowners’ attention with 31% reach of our target. But instead of dropping $7M on a national spot, we decided to go local in one of the toughest real estate markets right now—Atlanta.

We had to convince homeowners that selling a home on Opendoor is actually exactly as easy as it looks. There is no catch. And we needed to do it in a way that would get unprecedented attention.

So we decided to do a live product demo on the world’s biggest stage. The Super Bowl. Not only was it the perfect stage, but as the unofficial start to homeselling season, it was also the perfect moment.

Our idea was audacious: Broadcast a real homeowner, selling a real home, in real time, during Super Bowl halftime.

And to really put our money where our mouth is, we picked one of the toughest cities in the US to sell a home right now. Our analysis of real estate MLS data of unsold homes and average time to sell homes pointed us to Atlanta.

Opendoor was disrupting a category that had remained unchanged for 100 years, helping homeowners circumvent all the BS that comes with selling a home.

But turns out, sellers were skeptical. It was not enough to drive awareness. We had to rewire the expectation of what selling is supposed to look like, and dramatize how easy it is to sell on Opendoor.

To get in our audience’s consideration set, we honed in on the unofficial start of selling season—the Super Bowl. Not only was it a relevant time to get on sellers’ radar, it aligned with our audience’s viewing interests. Our core target were avid sports lovers, with 23% of them being NFL superfans. iSpot tracking data confirmed strong performance in 2023 with sports.

Our strategy: Hijack this moment to show (not tell) sellers just how easy it is to sell the Opendoor way. So easy, you can sell during halftime.

The campaign had three phases:

PHASE 1

Pre-Game: Seed how easy it is to get an offer with Opendoor. This was supported with local connected TV, added value local broadcast, social, and OOH.

PHASE 2

In-Game: Live stream a real family doing a showing during Super Bowl halftime.

This was supported by two local Super Bowl spots.

Spot #1 aired 2nd quarter, directing users to the live stream on YouTube.

Spot #2 aired 3rd quarter, celebrating the family accepting their offer live.

The tech team from CBS affiliate WANF was at the shoot to feed the live spot directly into the broadcast. No easy feat. Teams monitored opportunities for real-time response for social.

PHASE 3

Post-Game: Fuel the conversation, encouraging others to get started at Opendoor.com.

On social we posted clips of the footage and amplified results with the help of PR partners to get media attention beyond Atlanta.

Awareness hit an all-time high:

The campaign drove an 8% lift in brand awareness nationally, beating all benchmarks from previous campaigns.

From an earned perspective, the campaign gained half a billion earned impressions, adding

up to $6.9M worth of free exposure—media exposure equivalent to the $7 million we did NOT spend on a national Super Bowl spot.

Consideration increased dramatically:

We saw a big jump in post-campaign consideration in Atlanta, from 67% to 84%.

Response rate to the campaign was positive—there was a 10X increase in search interest and a 2X increase in engagement rates.

Business impact:

We saw an 88% increase in site visits in Atlanta—and every new visit to the site also became a new lead for the brand.

We also saw a whopping 31% increase in home offers in Atlanta.