Marcel Gets New Digs Via Corcoran.com

Marcel Elliott doesn’t have a face that just his mother, Phyllis, can love. And The Corcoran Group is banking on that.

On November 27, the real estate brokerage giant aired its first-ever live-action television commercial, starring none other than Marcel—a 22-pound French bulldog. The 30- and 60-second advertising spots follow the canine’s search for new digs after his co-op board boots him for too much barking.

“So he’s decided to move to a place where he can live who he is,” a posh male voice explains during the ad’s opening scene as Marcel hops off his couch in a plush Manhattan apartment and over to his laptop, where he Googles “Home wanted. Dog friendly.”

The internet search leads him to Corcoran’s newly redesigned website, which is “to bark for,” the ad says.

The 11-month-old puppy uses the site

to browse listings in his price range—another Manhattan apartment for $14.75 million, an East End estate on Cobb Isle Road in Water Mill for $12.95 million and a Palm Beach manse for $22.5 million—find local real estate agents and scout neighborhoods using newly integrated social media, including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare on his computer and smartphone.

“We really struggled with finding a way to show our new features without it feeling like a laundry list,” Corcoran Chief Marketing Officer Christina Lowris-Panos explained during a telephone interview last week. “We were working with a writer who said, ‘Why don’t we show the journey of someone looking for a home through Corcoran.com?’ But whenever we tried to put a person in, it didn’t feel right. So we came up with the idea to do it by dog. It was a little bit unexpected.”

The rest unfolded very quickly. Corcoran put out an email to all of its agents in search of a dog—more specifically, a French bulldog, Ms. Lowris-Panos said.

“They have a great face,” she said of the breed.

Corcoran got lucky when Phyllis Elliott, a Brooklyn Heights senior associate, immediately responded with photos of Marcel. The advertising execs were sold.

“We knew that if we put a little outfit on him, he’d look really cute,” Ms. Lowris-Panos said.

With a $500,000 budget, they began a 48-hour shoot just days later around SoHo and the Flatiron District in Manhattan in early October, Ms. Lowris-Panos reported. Marcel explores the neighborhood: shopping at Canine Styles, getting a massage at Every Dog’s Day Spa and meeting up with his girlfriend Lulu—the pet of Corcoran Vice President Christina Abad in Williamsburg—who joins him for a stroll and a romantic brunch at the restaurant Jack’s Wife Freda.

“That was the most challenging part, him sitting at the café eating at the table,” Ms. Elliott said during a telephone interview last week. “Sitting up is not his mode of eating. His paws are on the floor. But the part with the massage table, that part of the day he was happy. Happy, happy, happy. And the dog park, that was the first time he was ever in a dog park. He was like, ‘Oh my god, look at all these new friends I have.’ This was so fabulous.”

With just Ms. Elliott on set as Marcel’s trainer, a number of scenes needed multiple takes, she said.

“There was one where he runs down the hall into the elevator, but when he got to the elevator, he wasn’t about to get in,” she said. “I said, ‘Let me go in the elevator, I’ll come up and once the door opens up and he sees me, he’ll come into the elevator.’ And that’s exactly how it went. Me and Marcel.”

Ms. Elliott and Marcel first met toward the end of March at a breeder’s home in Pennsylvania, she fondly recalled. Two puppies were bumping heads over the food bowl, so she knew they weren’t for her. Another lay lethargically in his bed, but she wanted a more energetic dog.

Then, along came 3-month-old Marcel. Ms. Elliott had a feeling about him, she said.

“He had a gorgeous disposition and was very loving and came up to me and was nuzzling in my hands. I thought, ‘Hmm, I have to think about this one,’” she said. “On the way home, I called and said, ‘Can you please reserve him?’ There was something about him and there’s still something about him. There’s everything about him. He’s quite the character.”

During the commercial, Marcel’s personality jumps through the screen, Ms. Lowris-Panos said, which has led to the ad’s runaway success on YouTube. In the last three weeks, the spots have drawn more than 380,000 views to Corcoran’s channel, she said.

“We could have gotten anything out of that initial email, with dogs’ personalities. Dogs and children are so difficult, and Marcel was just a dream,” she said. “He’s such a charming little guy and his journey, he’s almost become a person. His journey through New York is really fun to watch.”

Since shooting wrapped, Marcel has gotten used to the star treatment, his mother said. After coming home to her Brooklyn apartment one day, she caught him lounging on the sofa.

“In the commercial, he was able to stand on the sofa. Now he thinks he can sit on my sofa whenever he wants,” she laughed. “I came in and there he was, sitting in the corner. The TV happened to be on. I said, ‘What is it that you think you’re doing? Down!’ That took a little bit of retraining.”

East Enders can catch the commercial on YouTube, on News 12 Long Island and at United Artists Southampton 4 and UA East Hampton 6 before screenings, Ms. Lowris-Panos said. The spot is also airing in Manhattan taxi cabs, as well as on NY1 News and Fox 5.

One morning about two weeks ago, Ms. Elliott’s television was tuned to Fox 5 as she was getting ready for work when she heard the smooth accent of the voice-over actor featured in the commercial. She glanced toward the screen and did a double take. There was Marcel.

“It was very surreal having him in the apartment and there he was on TV,” she said. “If he weren’t my dog, it would be like, ‘Oh my god, look at that dog!’ and then I turn around and have the real version. My handsome Marcel. It was really, really something.”

Marcel watched, too, but didn’t seem to recognize himself, Ms. Elliott said.

To view Corcoran’s Marcel commercials, visit youtube.com.