Famous beefcake model Fabio is doing some fabulous abs, er, ads for eNeighborhoods.

Suggestive two-page centerfolds of the long-haired, blue-eyed romance novel cover king are being featured in just about every major real estate magazine including The Real Estate Professional and Realtor Magazine.

The attention-getting ads are designed to help eNeighborhoods subscribe Realtors to eNeighborhoods' new version of its free-until-the-end-of-the-year Power Suite, an online marketing materials program.

Wearing jeans, a studded leather belt, and chamois vest strategically draped to unleash his impressive naked pecs, Fabio will be seen in most real estate magazines in a relatively tame ad compared to the ads that could have been approved by some organizations.

Here are two of the ads that made some real estate publishers blush: Fabio wearing only an eNeighborhoods pamphlet and a loin cloth. Prudery triumphed over af-front-ery (couldn't resist) with eNeighborhoods, too, as the company decided that less is more, or maybe more is more. Editor's note: Please be patient with the slow PDF file downloads above. It takes time to unfurl that much man.

It's all in good fun, says Stu Siegel, CEO of eNeighborhoods. "We believe that most people will get the tongue-in-cheek aspect of the ad."

That's easy to say if one's tongue isn't hanging out. For those for whom a centerfold spread isn't enough, Fabio will also be on hand for autographs and photo ops in the eNeighborhoods booth at the National Association of Realtors (NAR) convention next month in San Francisco.

The idea to get Fabio for the launch was the result of a brainstorm, says Greg Robertson, vice president of marketing for eNeighborhoods. "This is part of a big alliance with the NAR," says Robertson, "and we were wondering who could we have at our booth? Someone said Fabio, and we all laughed. We didn't think we could pull that off, but we kept coming back to the idea. He isn't offensive to men and he hits the right age demographic."

That would be almost any woman over puberty.

Robertson gave Fabio's handlers a call, and negotiations went from outrageous to getting-close. Finally, Robertson threw out a walk-away-from-the-booth offer -- "Look, we can get Erik Estrada for half of what you guys want." The handlers burst out laughing, and the deal was struck.

But then taking advantage of Fabio's famous assets proved a difficult concept to introduce into the conservative real estate environment.

"We were going to have the magazines put a sticky note (you-know-where,)" says Robertson, "'To find what you are looking for -- look under here!'" We came up with print ads and went to Chicago to talk to NAR, but they weren't liking a lot of stuff we had. He has to have pants on, they said. The ad we came up with wasn't as racy as we wanted, or as tame as they wanted."

"We got nipple," jokes Seigel of the compromise. "That is a huge step."

Another large Realtor organization pulled the ad when they saw it, but then later came around, says Robertson. It was just the water-cooler effect eNeighborhoods wanted.

"We think the ads will bring people to our booth at the NAR and make them want to try our new version of Power Suite," says Robertson.

Fabio will sign autographs at the NAR convention, and Realtors may have their pictures taken with him.

Published: October 1, 2003

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