Sex Sells? Tampa Bay Housing Market Hopes So

Sex has been used to sell cars, clothes and cologne for decades - and now it’s aiming for a target demographic to drive slumping Tampa Bay housing market sales of residential condominium units in a market that could use a little excitement.

The ads are geared to catch the attention of prospective Florida mortgage applicants ages 25 to 45, particularly males.

One such print ad, offering condos starting at $80,000, prominently features a model leaning on the edge of a pool, wearing a bikini and smiling large. Marketing firms caution would-be buyers that “she” might not actually live there.

The agency promoting the new Element condo tower in downtown Tampa hired a statuesque Miami model as its icon, showing the building’s design on the back of a form-fitting gown.

“Our ad was more of a fashion statement,” said Karen Ableman, president of Ronin Advertising Group in Miami.

Element’s ads are intended to appeal to socially and fashion-conscious residents across all types of demographic groups, including families, she said.

Scantily clad models were prominently featured in billboards for South Florida housing market condo developments as far back as 2002 in an effort to get the attention of their most-likely clientele - young professionals and empty nesters, Ableman said.

“It didn’t matter what project you were doing,” she said, “you threw a naked person up there and you thought it worked.”

Ableman said the sexy condo ads are more likely to be seen in larger metropolitan markets such as the Tampa Bay area than they would in mid-sized or smaller markets, where they might not be as effective in reaching a target audience

Element’s ad, and others like it, is borrowed from the fashion industry, which often uses iconic images to sell its designs, Ableman said. The idea is to get people to see themselves in a Tampa Bay home or condo rather than a garment, she said.

“You have to psychographically have the right type of market to be able to pull that off,” Ableman said.

The success of those ads remains to be seen in the Tampa Bay area, which commonly lags south Florida real estate trends. Last year’s “conversion reversion” was already under way there by the time local apartment complexes started putting up their for-sale signs.

Local marketers of converted condos are still hopeful.