For a while, you couldn’t drive around any burgeoning community — anywhere — without the visual assault of the now famous sign spinners, or as we like to say in the real estate industry: human directionals.  It seemed every new home community, suburban or urban, had its own street team dedicated to bringing drivers’ attention to their communities, and they dueled on every street corner.  The hope was that this would drive traffic to the sales office.

There was even a national contest for sign spinners.  I think this guy should have won (hometown boy from San Diego):

I have for years had similar conversations with homebuilder clients and marketing directors about the success of this tactic, wondering if human directionals actually delivered potential home buyers to the sales office.  Not one of them could provide any metrics for success, but we all know the number one thing a prospect sales when they are asked in the sales office how they found out about the community:  “We were just driving by.” Did the sign flipper help them decide?

In a recent meeting at our agency, one of my team members said it well: if the sign flipper is really good at catching your attention – and is visually entertaining – then does it defeat the purpose?  Can you actually read the sign he has so expertly just flipped around his neck, underneath his leg and used in a double-spin-and-twirl-somersault-with-a-half-twist?

One thing remains clear, however.  These “guerilla marketing” tools, these street teams, these human directionals, can be considered a precursor to modern-day mobile media tactics.  After all, they are engaging in a communications strategy that requires you to interact with them while moving past.  Presumably, some of the traffic stream that passes by will be diverting in the direction they are pointing, resulting in people at the sales office.

In today’s tech savvy world, mobile marketing is allowing us to accomplish some of this without the crazy guy on the street corner. If you have a smart phone, the technology exists to pinpoint your location and inform you of all new home sales offices in the immediate vicinity.  You can even link into Google maps, and drop GPS pins on a map — while receiving driving directions, information about nearby schools and points of interest, etc.  This all happens as you sit in your home, car or favorite neighborhood cafe, planning your route at any time of the day or night.

So maybe sign spinners were the pioneers, but we’re quickly moving past them. Excuse the pun.