Image credit: Apartments.com
Even if you haven’t used Apartments.com, chances are you’ve probably heard of (or seen) Brad Bellflower.
The fictitious “Silicon Valley Maverick,” played by the quirky and captivating Jeff Goldblum, is the secret sauce behind CoStar Group’s largest and most successful brand. Bellflower's spectacled face has popped up almost everywhere across the advertising ecosystem for nearly a decade, from TV to TikTok to streaming (including a few massive Super Bowl spots). He's been so ubiquitous at times that I’ve had to remind myself, no, Malcolm from Jurassic Park did not quit his acting career to run an online apartment shopping platform (Not to say that Goldblum is incapable of such a pivot).
With his stylish blazer-turtleneck ensemble, Bellflower is the spitting image of a savvy startup executive plucked straight from a San Francisco tech conference. He looks like a disruptor sitting on a billion-dollar valuation whose next big idea (the ‘Apartminternet’) is going to “change the world” — even if he is, indeed, not a real person.
What is real, though, is Apartment.com’s nearly $1 billion in 2023 revenue and its ongoing run atop Google’s SERP rankings. Search almost anything related to “apartments” in your browser, and chances are that Apartments.com will end up being the first result.
“For eight straight quarters Apartments.com has held the number one position in the industry in terms of monthly unique visitor traffic, according to Google Analytics,” said Andy Florance, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CoStar Group, in a February 2024 earnings statement.
If this was the outcome the folks at Apartments.com (and the ad agency RPA) were going for when they recruited Goldblum to headline this campaign in 2015, they succeeded — and then some. Brad Bellflower is a shining example of how creativity in traditional advertising can help brands pervade social consciousness and stand out amidst an otherwise mundane yet uber-competitive industry.
The “Bellflower effect” has helped Apartments.com go mainstream. But why stop there? This character has more of a story to tell, and given his immense popularity, I see no reason to keep Bellflower confined to a 30-second ad spot. Could more of a brand publishing approach be on the horizon?
The Brad Bellflower Cinematic Universe
As someone who has lived in several apartments in a number of different cities, let me tell you that shopping for a new place is by no means a glamorous process, and neither is moving.
But the genius of the Brad Bellflower ad campaign is that it takes an ordinarily stressful ordeal and makes it look exciting — revolutionary, even — by indulging in a little bit of fantasy.
Just as 'Zillowing' has become a part of the American lexicon, Apartments.com has adopted a content strategy that emphasizes the wonder of imagining oneself in a new living arrangement through a platform that brings infinite housing possibilities directly to your fingertips. No moving boxes and no sketchy listings.
Carried by Goldblum’s unique charm, the ads also deftly reflect the actor’s signature mix of humor and science fiction. Game shows, aliens, piano jingles and interns who are willing to go anywhere to scout out listings, the ads are as entertaining as they are all-encompassing. They have a bit of something for everyone, indicating that no matter who you are or where you’re from, Apartments.com wants to help you find the place of your dreams.
Like any long-running ad campaign, the content tends to come in waves. Through each iteration, Apartments.com has stayed relevant and kept audiences hooked with a mix of commercials that, although they may follow the same general formula, are quite distinct from one another. Bellflower is always up to something new. Each ad feels like a different episode in a running series, adding to the ever-expanding Brad Bellflower cinematic universe. He even made a cameo in the rollout of Homes.com’s 2024 ad campaign (another brand under the CoStar Group umbrella).
So naturally, all of this got me thinking: If someone made a spinoff series about the Brad Bellflower story, I’d definitely tune in.
More Stories To Tell?
OK, maybe not a full-fledged sitcom (à la Geico’s Cavemen back in 2007), but I feel like Bellflower is the type of character who would excel in a different medium. He might be built to help people find and list apartments, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be a renter, too.
Instead, Apartments.com could lean into Goldblum’s (and Bellflower’s) cult following and consider creating original content it can own. Sure, that could be a TV series, but it could also be a documentary (or a mockumentary), a podcast, a TED Talk-style lecture series or a reality TV franchise. When brands start thinking like publishers, the possibilities for reaching new audiences can be endless.
Take the aforementioned Zillow, for example. The company turned a social media home shopping phenomenon into an HGTV series, where a celebrity host takes viewers on a tour of some of the most eccentric houses in the country. Not only is the show entertaining for fans obsessed with wacky real estate, but it also promotes Zillow’s brand awareness and drives interested users to the home shopping platform. I can envision a similar, apartment-focused show hosted by Goldblum (as Bellflower, of course) having a comparable impact on Apartments.com.
If a scripted show is more your style, look no further than Apple TV’s Ted Lasso, which practically wrote the playbook for making the jump from advertising to a successful TV series. Jason Sudeikis first played the titular character during a series of ads promoting NBC Sports’ coverage of the English Premier League. Now, Ted Lasso is one of the most popular streaming shows and has greatly increased U.S. interest in soccer and the Premier League in particular.
Perhaps a limited series on the life and times of Brad Bellflower would have a similar effect on the rental industry. (I mean, have you seen the price of houses lately?) Ted Lasso showed that it’s at least possible.
With Bellflower as the spokescharacter, Apartments.com’s traditional advertising campaign has been wildly successful. But if the company wants to stay atop the rental platform food chain, it’s never too late to think about adopting a marketing strategy suited for the new age of brand publishing. It’s the kind of forward-thinking move that would make Brad Bellflower proud.
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