Catch Your Dream Home: Brand Networks and Realtor.com® Partner on Pokemon Go-Inspired Facebook Campaign

BOSTON, MA--(Sep 7, 2016) - Brand Networks, the award-winning provider of solutions that simplify social™, has teamed with realtor.com®, a leading online real estate destination with more existing homes available for sale than any other national online real estate portal, to raise brand awareness and drive mobile application downloads with a campaign designed to help users find their dream homes. Tapping into the overnight sensation of Pokémon Go, the augmented reality mobile game that sends players on real-world quests to find, train, and battle Pokémon, the companies launched a Facebook campaign that placed similar messaging and imagery from the game into the feeds of Facebook users. Conceived, created, and launched just days after the Pokémon Go game went viral, the campaign reached almost 530,000 unique Facebook users at an impressive $5.24 CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and delivered a 15% conversion rate in just six days.

"The Facebook platform enables people with shared interests to connect and share on a massive scale. In turn, marketers are presented with a significant opportunity to monitor these signals and react with meaningful and real-time messaging," said Jamie Tedford, CEO and Founder of Brand Networks. "We identified an enormous audience of Facebook users exchanging tips and broadcasting their participation in Pokémon Go. Our team and software helped realtor.com® tap into this cultural phenomenon, translate signals into an actionable marketing opportunity and use the Brand Networks Platform to reach and optimize messages to this audience on a tight timeline."

The campaign used a series of ads with creative influenced by Pokémon Go to promote the free realtor.com® free mobile app. Messaging such as "Be a real-estate master" paired with in-app imagery resembling the game inspired users to "catch" their dream home using realtor.com®. As for audience targeting, the Brand Networks platform was used to target relevant ads to a variety of segments, which were then further optimized against the best performing groups. The campaign capitalized on the fun and lighthearted nature of house hunting, and resonated best with women between the ages of 45 to 54.

The entire process was executed in one week in order to access the game's massive base of players in as timely a manner as possible. The campaign was a success for realtor.com® and helped drive brand awareness and downloads for their award-winning mobile app.

"Seeing that Pokémon Go became one of the hottest topics trending on Facebook, we wanted to generate similar user excitement and cultural relevance for realtor.com®. Our thought was while users are out and about driving around catching Pokémon, they can also 'catch' their dream home by downloading and using the realtor.com® app," said Genevieve Owyang, Director of Mobile Marketing, realtor.com®. "The Brand Networks team did a fantastic job and we were thrilled to have them in our corner on this initiative."

Pokémon Go and Pokémon are trademarks of Nintendo. Realtor.com® is a registered trademark of The National Association of Realtors. Niantic, Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Pokémon Go are in no way affiliated with Brand Networks nor with realtor.com®.

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About Brand Networks
Brand Networks Simplifies Social™. The company delivers award-winning social media advertising software and services to hundreds of enterprise customers, including half of the Fortune 100 and 17 of AdAge's 25 Most Advertised Brands. The Brand Networks Platform uses personalization data and powerful automation technologies to help marketers optimize their media investments across the social web. Media buyers can reduce campaign management time by 75% while increasing their return on advertising spend across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Snapchat. Brand Networks was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Boston with offices in San Francisco, New York City, Rochester, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Sydney, and Mexico City. For more information, please visit bn.co.

About Realtor.com®
Realtor.com® is the trusted resource for home buyers, sellers and dreamers, offering the most comprehensive database of for-sale properties, among competing national sites, and the information, tools and professional expertise to help people move confidently through every step of their home journey. As the official site of the National Association of REALTORS®, realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate 20 years ago, and today helps make all things home simple, efficient and enjoyable. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp (NASDAQ: NWS) (NASDAQ: NWSA) (ASX: NWS) (ASX: NWSLV) subsidiary Move, Inc. For more information, visit realtor.com.