The campaign also spent on events, plowing about $895,000 into renting sites, decorating and setting up stages, lighting and audio equipment.
They have ranged from opening "pop-up stores" that temporarily rent sites in visible locations like Rockefeller Center to festooning telephone poles with posters about a "found" dog that turns out to be Bullseye, the Target mascot.
The report, entitled Building Homes for Generation Rent, looks at the economics of 16 "build to rent" sites - produced by six housing providers and comprising 778 homes - that have been developed in the UK.
Flats must be rented, web sites created, and other web sites paid to link to them.
He added: "It's easy, there are plenty of empty army barracks in Greece; there is plenty of uncultivated land that could be rented and sites could be developed".
"Rent" sites are subscription based, all-you-can-eat services where you get to listen to all music in the catalog as long as you continue to pay the monthly fee.
The data-crawling pros at Priceonomics ran an extensive study into the benefits of booking with room-renting sites like Airbnb and VRBO -- and they found that renting a room in someone's apartment or home can save budget travelers up to 49percentt compared with renting a room in a hotel.
Seat backs and cushions can be rented on site.
He said he rented the site to an Asian couple "in their 50's" believing the property would be used as a nail salon.
But The San Diego Union-Tribune identified him as Flavio Aguirre, an auto broker in Tecate, Mexico, who told the paper that he rented the site a couple of years ago to men who said they operated a furniture-moving company.
