September 28, 2010 / Dawn

Commercial for Tilson Homes Wins TAB Star Award

Planet Central’s “Couple” spot was awarded the 2010 Star Award for “Best Television Commercial”. The Star Awards are the Southwest’s premier building industry awards program hosted by the Texas Association of Builders. Check out the award winning spot for Tilson Home Corporation below.

Tilson Home Corporation Joins Extreme Makeover Home Edition for the Heart of Texas Build

The call to build a home for a deserving family in just one week has been answered by three Texas-based organizations including Tilson Home Corporation, Temple-Inland Inc. and Texas Association of Builders. The team is calling the project “The Heart of Texas Build.”

Planet Central has partnered with "The Heart of Texas Build" by offering a full marketing and public relations campaign to recruit volunteers, raise funds and collect building materials. In the past few weeks, our agency has been busy with activities which include:

promoting a Pep Rally event to raise awareness of the build
updating the media through press releases and media tours/interviews to recruit volunteers and collect building materials
designing banners and posters to organize the build site and other build related events
creating "The Heart of Texas Build" brand jackets, t-shirts, baseball hats, construction hats and badges to organize volunteers and raise funds for the build
creating and maintaining all website and social media profiles

We are even volunteering at the build this week! For more information on the build, please visit www.HeartOfTexasBuild.com.

Extreme Advertising

The Hollywood Adventure of One Agency

Be sure to tune in to ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on Sunday, February 20^th at 8PM EST to see how it all came together.

When we heard in late October that our client, Tilson Homes, was going to participate in an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition build, we were immediately excited. We discovered pretty quickly that while the build would be a great way for our client to become not only a regional but national name in construction – the preparation for the build would be monumental.

Pre-build

Since the build team was comprised of multiple companies, we needed a brand name and logo that could symbolize the build and unify the three different company logos. After considering the build location and reason for being, we landed on “The Heart of Texas.” The logo incorporated the brand name with a visual of two hammers making the symbol of a heart and each of the three companies’ individual logos on a banner below.

Once the logo and brand name were determined, we began coordinating the apparel for the build team. In addition to being an active construction area, the site was also considered “on-set” for the TV show. Because of this, each member of the 90 person build team needed to have coordinating apparel and identification. Planet Central selected, logoed and purchased t-shirts, fishing shirts, jackets, baseball caps and even Cowboy Hat Hard Hats for the build team members. We also created the artwork and put together the ID badges for the build team, VIPs, Media and more.

As a thank you to the VIPs and sponsors of the build, we imprinted the build logo and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition logos on an aluminum water bottle as a keepsake. To help our client raise money for a fund for the family, we negotiated a deal with a t-shirt vendor and created 5,000 t-shirts that were for sale at the Pep Rally and during the build week.

In the weeks prior to the build, we also developed and maintained a website dedicated to the build that allowed the public as well as skilled volunteers to sign up to help during the build as well as provided useful information regarding dates and times for important events during the build week. We also created social media profiles for the build on Facebook and Twitter to help generate excitement in the community as well as provide important information to volunteers, supporters and the media.

Planet Central also created banners that would be used during the build week to promote sponsors, identify locations (VIP tent, Media Corral, Chuckwagon, etc), serve as polite notices to the community (Pardon our Mess) as well as a banner that each of the 4,000 volunteers signed during the build week and was given to the family as a keepsake after the build.

In order to help get our client’s other retail locations excited about the event, we created buttons for sales counselors at each location to encourage customers to ask about the build. We also created signage for inside the retail locations explaining what was happening.

In mid-November, Planet Central began sending out the first of many Press Releases regarding the build in North Central Texas in order to promote important build events and recruit volunteers.

During the Build

While the majority of the marketing campaign for the build was in place, there were still many details that would need to be taken care of on-site during the build week. To ensure that everything ran smoothly, Planet Central sent three members of the Account Team to Texas for the build. In addition to living in an RV on-site for 24 hour availability, the Account Team handled all media requests for interviews with build team leaders, celebrities, volunteers, soldiers and more – some even at 2AM! While on-site the team continued to update the build website and social media profiles while ensuring that the day to day marketing for clients continued as planned.

A videographer for Planet Central also filmed over 40 hours of footage during the build week – including portions of a Christmas Carol that was written for the build week. The Account Team coerced soldiers, volunteers and skilled workers to participate in the music video which was then uploaded to YouTube and used for Tilson’s Christmas e-Card. The remaining video footage will be used to create a DVD of the event for the build sponsors and partners.

The day after the home was revealed to the family, Planet Central hosted a press conference in front of the newly built home. The event was the first opportunity for the press to meet and ask questions to the family as well as an opportunity for sponsors to give any additional gifts and greet the family.

Post Build

Once the build was complete, the work was not over. In order to keep up the momentum of the build for our client, Planet Central planned viewing parties for the episode at each retail location as well as in the town of Salado, TX – where the home was built.

For the retail locations, Planet Central created a mailed and emailed invitation as well as a radio spot inviting guests to come to watch the episode as well as for behind the scenes information from the company that built the home. One guest at each location would also have a chance to win a t-shirt signed by show host, Ty Pennington.

The viewing party in Salado, TX is primarily for the volunteers that put so much time and effort into the build. Since Planet Central had continued to interact with volunteers and fans on social media sites after the build completed, the event sold out before an official notice was even sent out!

Planet Central also helped organize a series of events for our client that would happen outside of their normal marketing areas. Each retail location would host a seminar giving details on the build as well as information on our client in general. We promoted these events by sending a “Save the Date” postcard to prospects in the seminar areas and then following up with an invitation for the event. Also supporting these events were newspaper ads in each location.

Even 10 weeks after the build was completed, Planet Central continues to receive and coordinate inquiries from media throughout the state of Texas.