HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pa., May 29, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Toll Brothers, Inc., (NYSE:TOL), the nation's leading builder of luxury homes, today announced the launch of NewHomeBuddy, an instant-message-style application, on the company's Website, www.tollbrothers.com. A user types, "I'd like to build a home in Scottsdale for 500K." NewHomeBuddy answers, "All right, I'm looking. We have three communities in Scottsdale, AZ that match your request."
With the launch of NewHomeBuddy, Toll Brothers, Inc. sets a number of industry firsts. The nation's No. 1 luxury home builder becomes the first homebuilder to utilize automated bot technology, an Internet-based software program that allows users to ask questions in "natural language" or "real English," and the first in any business category to apply the buddy technology as a Website-based marketing tool. NewHomeBuddy employs the protocol of instant messaging, allowing users to interact with an automated buddy just as they would with a friend or colleague on their instant-message list. Users can ask NewHomeBuddy a question in "natural language," and NewHomeBuddy replies in the chat-style of IM.
"For someone with questions about building a new home, using NewHomeBuddy will be like having a real conversation with a home-building expert," said Kira McCarron, Vice President Marketing, Toll Brothers, Inc. "If you say, 'I'd like to live near a golf course in Las Vegas,' the buddy will find a Toll Brothers Community for you." NewHomeBuddy runs on the Toll Brothers, Inc. web site, www.tollbrothers.com.
"NewHomeBuddy delivers a level of interactivity, immediacy and functionality to a Website visitor that was never before imaginable and is strategically aligned with Toll Brothers' online objectives," explains Robin Neifield, C.E.O. NetPlus Marketing, Inc. The concept, development and launch of NewHomeBuddy was a collaborative effort between NetPlus Marketing, Inc., Toll Brothers' online agency of record and NetPlus affiliate, e*media, inc., a New York City-based interactive agency and the developer for Keebler's RecipeBuddie.
Anna Murray, President of e*media, inc. comments, "Consumers are hungry to communicate in this way. It's just so much easier to type in 'I want a home in Phoenix' than to click-click-click. IM has an immediacy that nothing else has."
Those wishing to converse with NewHomeBuddy can simply go to the Toll Brothers, Inc. Website and initiate a conversation. NewHomeBuddy does not proactively contact consumers or collect personal data. NewHomeBuddy draws on Toll Brothers' extensive database of community and product information.
About NetPlus Marketing, Inc.: NetPlus Marketing has been delivering online marketing, email and advertising results since 1996. NetPlus' core competencies include the development, implementation and optimization of online customer acquisition, activation and retention programs across digital platforms including online media, email, search marketing, wireless and other emerging channels.
About e*media: e*media, inc. is a full-service Internet marketing and development company with offices in New York City and Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company, which was founded in 1997, has designed web sites and interactive campaigns for national brands including Keebler, Kellogg, Bayer, Del Monte, and Toll Brothers, Inc. Anna Murray, founder and owner of e*media, is the author of "Online Marketing for Consumer Packaged Goods Companies." (Marketing Sherpa, June 2003)
NOTE TO EDITORS: The company name, e*media, contains an asterisk between the 'e' and 'm', e(asterisk)media
Toll Brothers, Inc. is the nation's leading builder of luxury homes. The Company began business in 1967 and became a public company in 1986. Its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Pacific Exchange under the symbol "TOL". The Company serves move-up, empty-nester, active-adult and second-home buyers and operates in 21 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.
Toll Brothers builds luxury single-family and attached home communities and master-planned luxury multi-product residential golf course communities principally on land it develops and improves. The Company operates its own architectural, engineering, mortgage, title, land development and land sale, golf course development and management, home security, landscape, cable T.V. and broadband Internet delivery subsidiaries. The Company also operates its own lumber distribution, and house component assembly and manufacturing operations.
Toll Brothers is the only publicly traded national home building company to have won all three of the industry's highest honors: America's Best Builder from the National Association of Home Builders, the National Housing Quality Award and Builder of the Year. For more information visit www.tollbrothers.com.
Certain information included herein and in other Company reports, SEC filings, statements and presentations is forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements concerning anticipated operating results, financial resources, changes in revenues, changes in profitability, interest expense, growth and expansion, the ability to acquire land, the ability to secure governmental approvals and the ability to open new communities, the ability to sell homes and properties, the ability to deliver homes from backlog, the ability to secure materials and subcontractors, and stock market valuations. Such forward-looking information involves important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect actual results and cause them to differ materially from expectations expressed herein and in other Company reports, SEC filings, statements and presentations. These risks and uncertainties include local, regional and national economic conditions, the demand for homes, domestic and international political events, the effects of governmental regulation, the competitive environment in which the Company operates, fluctuations in interest rates, changes in home prices, the availability and cost of land for future growth, the availability of capital, uncertainties and fluctuations in capital and securities markets, the availability and cost of labor and materials, and weather conditions.