Streeteasy NYC “Reserve Your Future”

Source: Streeteasy

As a "native" New Yorker, I absolutely love this campaign. It just might be my favorite ever, forever!

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Streeteasy launched "Reserve Your Future," a campaign that invites New Yorkers to make reservations at iconic NYC institutions two decades out, in the year 2046. These are ressies at hard-to-get restaurant tables, film forum seats, and access to art gallery exhibits. The places only people who really know the city can navigate. If you are a New Yorker, then you know.

If you are not familiar, Streeteasy is an online real estate market where New Yorkers can buy, sell, and rent apartments. A local broker you might say.

The twenty year timeframe, while it is the brand's anniversary, isn't random. It's actually the entire insight of the campaign.

Twenty years online for a real estate marketplace is significant. In fact twenty years in the New York real estate market is almost miraculous. But for New Yorkers, twenty years means something deeper. It's the unspoken threshold for belonging. You're either born in the city as a native New Yorker or you earn it through longevity. After two decades of residency, you're not just a long-timer, you're a New Yorker. That's the badge everyone wants.

Source: Streeteasy

I myself have earned the badge by being born upstate, going to grad school in Manhattan, and then living here for decades. I wear it with honor and pride. How 'ya doing?

Streeteasy clearly understands this, the brand is a New Yorker too. It's a brand built on helping people find homes so it understands that the campaign isn't really about restaurants or art galleries but about the journey to becoming part of the city itself.

Whether these places survive until 2046 is almost beside the point. That’s because participants are automatically entered into a sweepstakes for New York experiences happening right now. Future thinking meets present action. You're building your New Yorker credentials while the brand gives you access to live your city immediately.

This works because it layers insight on insight. The brand, the timeframe, the identity play, the immediate payoff. And the brand equity … Streeteasy just positioned itself as the platform that doesn't just help you find an apartment, it helps you become a New Yorker.

This is a campaign that gets it. Both the brand and the city. What's your experience? JIM