NYC Real Estate Agent "Annie' Lenane Captivates Captive Audiences on 'Taxi TV'

When I first saw Ann Cutbill Lenane's real estate ad on the screen in the back of a NYC taxi - I thought it was genius! Turns out it was.

Taxi TV! Wow. Talk about a captive audience!

Ann Cutbill Lenane is the 'OG' of creative real estate marketing in NYC. She was the first real estate person to take advantage of movie theater ad screens. Ann created ads for her luxury NYC properties to entertain movie goers while they waited in their seats for the movie to start in the days before movie seat reservations were a 'thing'.

She did that for 14 years before taking her "Annie Gets It Done" commercial highlighting her exclusive real estate listings and placing it onto the screens in the back seats of NYC's yellow cabs.

So, it was no surprise that Ann who advertises on Taxi TV in NYC was featured in a recent Sunday New York Times Real Estate Section article called "Valuable Real Estate in the Back Seat ".

Those back seat taxi ads not only showcase some of New York's most luxurious properties but they're also 'geo-targeted', meaning real estate agents can restrict their 'ads' to only be shown while the taxi is traveling in certain areas or on certain streets where they have listings.

Ann, who's an agent with Douglas Elliman, says buyers like to aspire and they want to see 'into' these apartments and this marketing strategy has translated into property sales.

Ann will tell you herself that NYC is a tough real estate market right now for sellers to get the prices they had been hoping for. But after 38 years of doing real estate in NYC, Annie prides herself on knowing just how to price an apartment and how to interpret market data with insider knowledge.

Even so, having just read that NY is #1 in the U.S. for people with marketing mindsets, I figured there must be a lot of competition for buyers these days? Does Ann worry about that?

"No, I'm always pushing it. I was the first one to advertise in the movie theater. I was the first one to advertise real estate in the taxis and I'm gonna be first to do something next. So, you know, I'm not worried about it, as you said, OG. So, I'm always gonna be out there and thinking creatively."

Speaking of being creative…

Annie typically makes 30-second slide shows of her listings, but along the way this single Mom of 2 daughters decided to risk throwing into her ad, that she was also looking for a Mr. Right!

"That ad went viral and over 15 million people saw it around the world. I was on Good Morning America, they took it and put it on the teleprompter in Times Square, I mean there were articles in China and Russia. I was getting phone calls from men in jail. I have not found the perfect man, but yes, I sure got a lot of attention from all over the globe."

Ann didn't find "Mr. Right" (yet) but she did find 2000 women who were rooting for her to find Mr. Right!

And Ann turned those champions into followers and friends, by creating women's empowerment events to bring them all together under the group name "Wise and Wonderful Women".

That's actually how I met Ann in person as well as other wise and wonderful women at an event she threw a few years ago at the Neuberger Museum in Westchester County.

"Well, it's so funny because what actually came out of the Man for Anne Taxi ad was all of these men were reaching out, but almost an equal amount of women reached out and wrote to me, because in the ad it says, " if you love your mother but you still don't live with her and have a kind and generous soul and can appreciate a 56-year-old, fit and fabulous woman, give me a call."

Women were writing me, and they would come up to me and they still do, it's five years later. And they said it was so brave. And I said, tell me why it was brave. Was it because I said I was looking for love? And it was like a kind of a knowing glance, and I said, or was it because I said I was 56?"

"And they said, yes."

"So, I said, that's got to stop. "

Ann was inspired to do something that would lift women. She founded "Wise and Wonderful Women to educate and empower women 50 and older. All her events are free.

"I didn't get the man but I got 2,000 women so I have 2,000 women that are part of the wise and wonderful women, and we do monthly events that are free and empower and educate women focusing mostly on women that are over 50. But I'm finding that my 23 and my 24-year-old daughters need our wisdom too and need to hear the topics that we are also interested in. We did one on heart health, we're doing one on launching financial grown-ups, on estate planning, all kinds of things and I learn, and these women learn as well, and many friendships come out of these events. "

"So, wow the ad worked all right. It didn't end up with what I thought was the prize, the gold ring, right? But the Wise and Wonderful Women came out of it. And that to me, when somebody tells me that it changed their life or it saved their life, which is what happened recently with some information that we shared during a heart health dinner, how cool is that?"

Very Cool!

Known as "Annie Gets It Done", Ann is ranked as Elliman's #1 Manhattan Broker for Transactions. She has been voted the Real Estate Board of New York's Broker of The Year and transacted billions of dollars in sales in Manhattan over her career.

She also gives back. In 2020, in response to the sanitation department budget cuts, she co-founded and still runs "One Block". This very successful non-profit fills 1000 bags of trash on the Upper West Side EACH WEEK with the help of volunteers and paid workers who were formally homeless! She also founded a literacy initialed in the Bahamas where she has a rental property and is a proactive member of the community there as well.

Interested in Taxi TV ?

I read in the NY Times article that NYC has two service providers for anyone interested in knowing more about how to advertise on the screens in the back seat of taxis: Curb and Creative Mobile Technologies. To advertise on Curb Taxi TV, agents can purchase ad space directly from Curb or through its sales partners like Firefly.

Enjoy this podcast of my live Interview with Ann Cutbill Lenane on The Debbie Nigro Show.