From the August issue: What do George Washington, rapper Lil Wayne and actor Jeff Goldblum have in common? They all appeared earlier this year in a Super Bowl television commercial sponsored by the CoStar Group.
The Washington, D.C.-based real estate data provider in February ran the ad for its residential listings site, Apartments.com, reportedly paying as much as $5 million to produce it and $20 million for the airtime. In the one-minute spot, Goldblum, seated at a grand piano and singing “Movin’ on up,” is hoisted up the side of a skyscraper, to A Palatial Rooftop Terrace, where he joins Lil Wayne and an actor playing the nation’s first president for a cookout. The commercial — which also featured a gospel choir of movers — was an absurd bit of promotional fluff, but it showed just how serious the company’s ambitions are. [more]