Real estate agent Kris Lindahl has been replaced, but not in the way you think.
The founder and CEO of Kris Lindahl Real Estate serving Minnesota’s Twin Cities market recently partnered with video game company Activision for a unique “Call of Duty” marketing activation that has rebranded billboards.
The directive: showcase the game character “The Replacer” taking over for real-life people so they can go home and play Black Ops.
“The Replacer” character from the Call of Duty Black Ops video game, depicted on a Twin Cities real estate billboard, in place of well-known local real estate expert Kris Lindahl.
The road to innovative marketing
Lindahl is no stranger to differentiated marketing. His team has been very strategic, following what he calls a sophisticated omnichannel approach to advertising.
“We’re everywhere, and that is very intentional,” he tells RISMedia. “The traditional platforms are valuable, and so are today’s digital options. They all work as long as you follow the process, stay the course, and don’t try to take shortcuts.”
The billboard space, where Lindahl saw success, typically sees a 40% rate of return on investment for traditional formats, according to Mediatool. The average cost to get one up for a four-week run is around $850.
But it’s all about consistency and long-term commitment with branding, says Lindahl. According to Capital One research, 68% of organizations say brand consistency has contributed at least 10% to their revenue growth.
Most importantly, if you get a call from the Activision CMO, you answer the phone.
The entire process—from outreach to vetting the brand to licensing to setting ads live and getting billboards up—took just two weeks. Soon, actor Peter Stormare, who depicts “The Replacer,” was shown across a series of advertising assets in Lindahl’s trademark arms-outstretched pose from a Super Bowl spot that had aired the year prior.
The original billboard of local real estate expert Kris Lindahl, which was “replaced” by the Call of Duty character shown above, through a marketing partnership.
A week in, Lindahl received more than 520,000 impressions on a related Facebook post. It’s an effort built on a decades-long real estate presence, 1,000-plus billboards, commercial spots, digital advertising and “an authentic connection between the brand and the real person.”
“When I started in real estate back in 2009, I would have never believed that an international company owned by Microsoft would come to me to license my trademarks for something as huge as this,” he says. “But as our brand has grown and continued to gain influence and attention, we’re getting a lot more recognition worldwide. I’m really proud of what we’ve built, and it was an honor to be a part of this.”
Lindahl joins the ranks of globally recognized celebrities who have been “replaced,” including NFL quarterback Kyler Murray, NBA player Anthony Edwards, WNBA star Angel Reese, musical artist The Weeknd, and more.
Why branding power matters
Those looking to put a stamp on their own markets might look to this as an example of why brand investment matters. In particular, it’s about building local influence, says Lindahl, and building trust with consumers.
“If I didn’t have a personal brand and didn’t have influence and recognition, this collaboration with ‘Call of Duty’ never would have come to be,” he says. “In the real estate industry, people don’t often know or can’t name CEOs. The recognition of my personal brand is an advantage for our whole team and for all of the customers we work with.”
When building a brand, Lindahl suggests sticking with it even through moments of feeling unnoticed. At the center should be authenticity that allows the company and its employees to live out its core values.
Failure is often the result of quitting too soon, he says. “There are no shortcuts.”
Branding isn’t an everywhere, all at once situation. RISMedia breaks down appropriate ways to get your brand out into the market—and other ways you should avoid.
Real estate marketing levels up
The takeover-style partnership between real estate and gaming/entertainment isn’t something Lindahl has necessarily seen before, but he’s confident the industry will experience more of it.
“It allows a large, international brand to make an impression very quickly in a local market by leveraging the influence of a known personal brand,” he says. “We believe it’s a brilliant strategy that is mutually beneficial.”
Of course, striking balance is crucial. Not every proposal is a good fit. Lindahl says he’s fielded daily outreach from brands looking to collaborate, but the answer has typically been “no” to help protect the integrity of his brand. This latest “yes,” however, has already widened the door to additional creative pitches to use Lindahl’s arms-out branding.
“Our brand gets hundreds of millions of impressions, and we’re known by millions of people,” he says. “It’s taken 15 years for us to build it, and the ability for ‘Call of Duty’ to piggyback off that quickly provided substantial value for them, and they understood that.”
