Today’s entry takes inspiration from great Canadian screenwriter Graham Yost whose script for Speed is forever etched in my memory:
Pop quiz, hot shot. There’s a new condo in Kitsilano. You’re a marketing firm tasked to make an ad that will hold thousands of potential buyers hostage. Your pre-sale launch date is 100 days away. What do you do? What do you do?
Shoot the hostage.
OK, this doesn’t make any sense. But it got the blood pumping. It’s a fitting start for a look at a condo named Pulse. That’s right, Pulse. It’s the latest sensation in Kitsilano condo living since FIRST got there first.
So as for the challenge of creating an ad that will hold potential buyers hostage? Behold a seemingly nude woman with sunglasses as she towers over an urban environment.
Why? Who knows. One guess is that someone at the marketing firm believes this has something to do with Kits, life, culture, and style. I’m thinking it might just be an accident coming out of the company office party. A few drinks among designers, all of a sudden clothes start coming off and a new ad is born. Call it condos gone wild.
My pulse is up all right. I’m running away from this as fast as I possibly can.
May 22, 2007 at 9:44 am
This development was disputed considerably, as it far exceeds the city’s normal allowed height (70 feet vs. 30 feet) and density (3x) for the area, and got its variance permit with virtually no debate from the variance board (which completely ignored residents’ concerns).
http://tinyurl.com/2wq53u
http://tinyurl.com/2uqgl3
http://tinyurl.com/36l9ed
May 22, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Checking for a pulse in a dying market? Is this for real?
May 22, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Once again the arbitrary use of a word which is arguably not really applicable to the development it is selling. I requested that condohype look at the use of ‘urban’ in virtually every ad in the city, ‘luxury’ and it’s various forms has been looked at as well.
Pulse……, of what exactly? The beat of the traffic, the buses, the area residents SUV’s pulling into the supermarket? I don’t get it, I mean really don’t get it.
I figured the name pulse would have been trademarked a long time ago by Rennie for use in the development of St Paul’s hospital, there it would have been used not just for it’s location….
May 22, 2007 at 10:06 pm
How about the pulse of the heroin junkie who lives on the tracks a block away, the pulse as it rises and falls as he smashes your car window ($300) to get $2.05 in change, buys his next hit, and gets high in the alley behind your building…
May 23, 2007 at 9:00 am
W I suppose….or any of the new Salient group projects where you pay a million bucks for the priveledge of a East Hastings or other such Gastown address. Lovely.
June 14, 2007 at 11:34 pm
The choice of name is rePULSEive, as it exudes the condescending attitude of the marketing team. The mascot lady is just as attractive. Paris Hilton could have been better behind the sunglasses!
August 8, 2007 at 12:12 am
[...] are all the rage in condo marketing these days. Pulse in Kits launched with Topless Babe in Shades, Grand Central Coquitlam made its mark with Woman in the Golden Gown, and now Prado gives us this [...]
August 26, 2007 at 2:51 pm
2 Bedrooms start at $568900. 1 parking included. $3000 for storage locker.
Completion date is Dec 2009. 2 bed prices are approx $660 a foot. With GST due upon completion. Too expensive.
August 29, 2007 at 10:56 am
as a recent purchaser at Pulse, the comments I have read so far are uninformed and ignorant. The prices are great value for new concrete in Kits and we love the name of the building. Furthermore, I happened to meet the girl in the picture and she is more beautiful than anyone I know, certainly Paris Hilton! This site needs new blood!
Pulse Owner
September 30, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Kimberly – You paid too much for your condo.
October 2, 2007 at 4:00 pm
These hacks are responsible for the work along with a lot of other stuff on this site.
http://www.designforrealestate.com/projects_29_2.php
Kimberly sounds like she works for the developer, very stealth.
November 6, 2007 at 12:05 am
[...] first wrote about Pulse back in May and I’ve long wondered what happened to the Kitsilano’s famous Topless Babe [...]
December 19, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Bob, CondoVan:
Could you be any more snooty and condescending? No wait, don’t answer that.
So there’s a new condo. So it’s name is Pulse. Big deal. You mind telling me what “Yaris” means? Or how about “VAIO” (no, wait I know that one)… or maybe the Asus EeePC … marketers will be marketers. It’s just a name and an image.
May 8, 2008 at 12:31 am
[...] Topless Babe in Shades is back only this time she has a shirt and free time to stroll the seawall. Who knows what [...]
November 18, 2008 at 4:06 pm
[...] Condohype is at it again and there’s no point in trying to be wittier than him: [...]