Brazil is going through a transition in its models, wherein TV has been losing space to digital entertainment. Even with TV stations having a dominant say over content generation, Brazil is experiencing an accelerated growth of its digital social networks. Facebook has seen the largest growth and has already far surpassed its largest local competitor, which was Orkut.

Brazilians spend 23 hours online every week, and often leave Facebook and Twitter open as a secondary screen. Blogs experienced intense growth in Brazil starting in 2006 and quickly became too commercial, due to a strong business exchange with the brands. As the blogs became money driven, they lost authenticity and credibility with the audience. Brazilians have been developing an ability to identify brands that have an authentic attitude, and only value brands that walk the talk.

To create an emotional connection with their target, Real Estate companies intend to ensure their products are 'perfect for you'. When Carvalho Hosken, one of the biggest Brazilian construction companies, launched its brand new high value venture, it also wanted them to feel like this.

But how is it possible to prove this so much overworked attribute to a highly demanding target? We decided to take this argument literally, surprising the visitors with an unique buying experience.

To schedule a visit to the showroom apartment, visitors had to use their Facebook login, granting us access to their profile information. The Social Home Tour then included surprises such as: background music from a band the visitant had liked; recent shared videos on the apartment`s TV; Facebook album pictures in every portrait; and the best route to work exposed at the office’s computer. In the end, customers answered the home phone, getting a special discount. As we used their own content, people experienced the apartment as if it was already theirs.

The success was so huge that Carvalho Hosken decided to repeat the experience in another ventures, adding a whole lot of new surprises.

In order to seduce the customers, it was necessary to deliver truthful content. So, instead of inviting people to create new content or deliver branded content we used something that was already ready: their own profile content.

When visitors entered the showroom apartment they faced their own stuff extracted from their Facebook profiles: background music from a band the visitor had liked, recent shared videos on the apartment's TV, Facebook album pictures in every portrait, the best route to their workplace exposed at the office’s computer, event and birth reminders on a fridge's note etc.

People were obviously surprised when they saw their own photos, videos etc spread through the apartment. It was a big ice breaker to set up a nice mood to sell the apartment.

As we used their own content, people experienced the apartment as if it was already theirs.

Increase of 300% on sales and increase of 230% on average visit time.

This innovation was a ground breaking one for the housing market. The Social Home Tour was described as 'the future of the real estate marketing' in various blogs and websites around the world. It's considered 'the biggest achievement in real estate POP' since the implementation of the showroom as a marketing tool. The experiment was featured in Contagious Magazine, Ad Age's Creativity, Directory Magazine, Global Innovation Report, awarded in FWA, One Show, Midas Awards, Tomorrow Awards etc and appeared in hundreds of tweets from financial market specialists to social media experts.

We even keep receiving a lot of requests from other companies wanting to do the same for their real state ventures. People from Australia, Spain, Mexico, Bolivia, France etc.

Apart from the amazing feedback received from our market peers, the results generated and the target's engagement were the most rewarding for us. It's not easy to break the ice and set up a nice environment to sell 1 million dollars apartments. Fortunately, we made it.