BadAptAds

The landlord marketing this apartment used a virtual flyer, which is fine, but they posted the flyer on a site that uses a different format, which causes some problems.

1.  The color on this font is very modern and cool, but the text is now shrunk down because the whole flyer is essentially a picture in this format. So what would have been very hip as a paper flyer or it's own web page is very annoying as you strain to read it.

2.  The pictures would have been much bigger and more clear had the landlord uploaded them individually instead of using the online flyer.  What we now see, like the text, is a picture of a picture.  The other obvious issue is that the pics are distorted from what appears to be a panorama function of the landlord's smartphone.  This is a fail on 2 levels. 1st, it's poorly done and 2nd, it's lazy.  The panorama is used in this instance so the landlord can get away with taking a few less pics.

3.  The landlord gets half credit on this one. There is an actual address, which is great, but they list the intersection for the map section of the ad.  You don't have to list the intersection because we'll see that when zooming in on the map to see the accurate address you listed.

Lessons:

1st lesson of how not to make an apartment ad:

Do not ever lose focus of the apartment. YES, you have a sparkling pool. Never mind the fact it may only be 3ft deep, you have a fucking pool! I understand the desire to sell prospective tenants on the vibe of your apartment community, but you do not ever show a pool without showing the apartment.  The same goes for the clubhouse and workout room.

Let us evaluate the pics Ray Brown Properties decided were important:

1 exterior shot.

1 shot of the tennis court.

1 Riverchase property logo(branding!?!)

1 Equal Housing Logo...

3 Pools shots!

And that is it...

The problem with this is that you come off as if you are trying to hide what the apartment looks like with extra shots of the pool. This is an instant fail.

  It's a shame, too, because as far as most ads go, this one was fairly well written.  Note that I didn't include the text of the CraigsList ad because there was nothing really wrong with it.

  On a side note, kudos to Craigslist for adding a map to apartment ads and kudos to this particular property for using the proper street address and not just a nearby intersection.

Many of us look on CraigsList and Hot Pads for apartments because we need to move, want to move, or just want to browse.  I will use this blog to focus on bad apartment ads.  These will be ads with misspellings, missing information, or bad/misleading photography.  My hope is that this catches on and people will reach out to me to advise on apartment ads, or at the very least, that people will start to make better apartment ads.