I visited the “Top Marques,” show in Monaco this weekend and bumped into Knight Frank’s on-site representative, Nick Brennan, who is a London-based sales director, dealing with luxury property for sale in the Bahamas.

Knight Frank chose to sponsor this year’s show, in the hope of meeting potential buyers, and when I asked Mr. Brennan how things were going, he smiled, shrugged, and said, “I ran out of business cards the first day.”  Which, if you are English (as both Mr. Brennan and I are) this  means, “Pretty damn fine thank you very much.”

Realistically, if some one can afford a $200,000 car, they are probably wealthy enough to be potential buyers of luxury property in the Bahamas, so a real estate agent sponsoring a luxury supercar show is not as outlandish as one might think.

One of the promotional tools Knight Frank were using at this show was a DVD giveaway of their “One Hyde park,” development. Produced as a promotion for both Candy & Candy and the development itself, stunning is the word that comes to mind. I have a copy and will hopefully be sharing sometime soon. Watch this space.

The cars them selves were pretty spectacular, (if a little boring – I must be getting old) although I would think they could afford to pay some one to polish the fingerprints off a little more regularly than they did. I only saw one fingerprint polisher the entire time I was there.

In the meantime, this is an excellent example of thinking outside the box, and certainly worth bearing in mind when considering appropriate venues for high-end property promotions.

Which also brings me to the opposite end of the spectrum. The broken promise, or “Getting it wrong on purpose,” which seems to be a prevalent marketing attitude, even when marketing a high-end show such as this one. I purchased two “V.I.P” tickets to the show, at just over sixty dollars a piece. After arriving at the show, I discover that all the tickets are “V.I.P” tickets and this entitles you to be able to pay $5 for a lousy cup of coffee, served by a surly waiter prepared to pretend he doesn’t speak English or French when you complain about said lousy cup of coffee. On top of that - they wouldn’t even let me drive the Lamborghini ‘round the Monaco F1 course.

Why bother? A massive advertising campaign, some of the most expensive brochures I have ever seen and then annoy the life out of everyone by treating them this way. Remember when your mother told you that you were special and then later said everyone is special. Yes – if everyone is a V.I.P – no one is a V.I.P. I doubt I will be returning next year unless I get a free ticket.