Well what a year so far – it seems that the ‘oneupmanship’ continues amongst the major players and now all News Ltd will be rebranded as Realestate.com.au.
Last week I received a press release (sorry I have been a little slack) detailing how all News Ltd Newspapers property sections would have REA branding throughout.
To me it is all about confirming in key markets where REA stand in the marketplace and from my perspective it is a strong move. It will not effect their play in Melbourne and Sydney as Fairfax totally dominate the property classifieds there, but in other markets it should cement their firm grip on number one – for the time being.
Currently REA’s marketing is all about telling everyone about how big they are, how many more leads they have, how many unique browsers they get each month and fair enough too – but with competition hotting up you can be sure that REA are working hard to bring out new releases and tweaks on their website.
From the release:
“There is now just one brand synonymous with home buying, selling and renting, so whether consumers choose to use online or print, realestate.com.au is the service they will turn to first.”
Well kind of – possibly a yes with online and a optimistic maybe from print. To me print is old news, but I am realistic enough to understand that it will has its place in the market for some time……………..that is until consumers start to question this strategy and say “hang on – you get 80% of your enquiries online – properties sell on average between 40 and 60 days from advertising and you want me to spend $3000.00 on a print campaign in the first two weeks – a print campaign that last only a day for each advertisement!”
In my humble opinion that day is not as far away as some may think!