PARSIPPANY, N.J. (December 7, 2011) — Century 21 Real Estate LLC, the franchisor of the world’s largest residential real estate sales organization, recently was honored with the Stevie® Award for Best Mobile Marketing Campaign of the Year.  The eighth annual Stevie Awards presentation was held in New York City in November.

In 2009, CENTURY 21^® made a strategic decision to focus on mobile marketing based on the rapidly growing popularity of both social networks and mobile platforms.  With 1 in 4 adults owning a smart phone^[1] and mobile gaming attracting 26 million players a day^[2], CENTURY 21 launched a highly successful in-game brand promotion on ngmoco’s mobile game – We City – in 2011. This innovative mobile marketing campaign enabled the CENTURY 21 brand to explore and interact with a growing segment of consumers who are mobile, social, and intent on acquiring property, both virtually and in real life.

More than 401,000 CENTURY 21 branded structures were placed in-game by We City players, averaging 4.32 CENTURY 21 buildings per user. Additionally, of those users that placed a building, 58 percent retained the brand message – a 40 percent positive change in awareness. According to the mobile app developer, Appsavvy, a normal change in awareness is only 18 percent. There were over 300,000 views of the CENTURY 21 branded video and more than 5.4 million views of the branded welcome screen.

“I am honored to accept this award on behalf of our 112,000 real estate sales professionals around the globe,” said Bev Thorne, chief marketing officer, Century 21 Real Estate LLC. “We pride ourselves on testing new waters when it comes to connecting with consumers. Our mobile marketing initiatives have been an enormous success and receiving this prestigious award demonstrates our commitment to reaching the next generation of home buyers and sellers, wherever and whenever they want to receive information.”

In addition to winning the Mobile Marketing award, Thorne was named a finalist in the Best Executive, Service Businesses category for launching a 360-degree marketing campaign that focused on the concept of establishing the CENTURY 21 Real Estate professional and brand throughout every media touch point from the @C21 – Home Matters blog to its planned advertisement on the Super Bowl in 2012.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business were created in 2004 to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and business people worldwide. Over the past seven years, the awards have become one of the most coveted achievements across the globe. This year’s finalists were chosen by more than 80 preliminary-round judges and the winners were selected from among the finalists by the 120 members of six final judging committees.