Like, genuinely fun. The kind where someone plays it at 11pm and texts their partner "babe come look at this."
Let me tell you what I've been doing instead of running another "thinking of selling?" ad.
I built a game.
Not a metaphor. An actual, playable, run-around-collecting-stuff browser game set right here in South Auckland, with branding baked into every pixel. It's called Papakura Surfer and you can play it right now at leannestewart.co.nz/papakura-surfer/
Go on. I'll wait.
Here's the thing about real estate marketing right now
Everyone's good at it. That's the problem.
The reels are polished. The photography is stunning. The captions are witty (or at least trying to be). Everyone's boosting posts, everyone's asking for appraisals, everyone's showing up in your feed with the same three hooks dressed in different fonts.
And look, it works. To a point. But when everyone's doing the same thing at a high level, you're not standing out. You're just... there. Another agent in a crowded feed, competing on production value with people who have whole teams behind them.
So where's the point of difference?
Where are the people actually pushing the envelope?
I found one
There's an agent overseas who built a hyperlocal game for his clients. You pick a character and wander through streets his clients actually recognise, eating familiar food, doing familiar things, even picking up rubbish (very on brand for a community-minded agent). It's charming, it's specific, it's theirs.
Win the game and there's a call to action. Connect with him. Get in touch. Book an appraisal.
But here's what I love about it: by the time you hit that CTA, you don't feel sold to. You feel delighted. You feel like this person gets it. Like they're someone worth talking to.
That's not a funnel. That's a vibe.
Why a game works when everything else is noise
A few things happen when someone plays a branded game:
They spend actual time with you. Not scroll-past time. Not half-watching-while-doing-the-dishes time. Focused, engaged, leaning-forward time. And Google absolutely notices when people hang around on your website.
They share it. "Have you seen this?!" is the most powerful marketing sentence in existence and you can't buy it. You have to earn it. A game earns it.
It positions you differently. You're not the agent begging for appraisals on Facebook. You're the agent who built something. Who thought differently. Who brought a little fun to an industry that can take itself a bit seriously.
It's a one-off campaign, not a commitment. Run it, promote it, let it do its thing. It doesn't need to be your entire strategy. It just needs to be memorable.
The hyperlocal angle is the secret ingredient
Generic is forgettable. Specific is magnetic.
A game set in your suburb, with your streets, your landmarks, your local flavour, hits different. People tag friends. They screenshot it. They go "oh my god, is that the dairy on Great South Road?" and suddenly your brand is tied to something they already love: their home.
That's not marketing. That's belonging.
So. Want one?
If you're curious about what a hyperlocal game could look like for your suburb, or if you've got another wild idea for something that's never been done in your patch, I'd love to hear it.
I'm not interested in doing what everyone else is doing. I'm interested in what's next.
Come find me. Let's make something cool.