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!
20th March 2007
REA must have been reading my mind.
Now all we want is REA Agents?????
Bring it on!
One stop shop for selling Real Estate.
20th March 2007
Well how about that, News only own half REA yet they are (finally) smart enough to rebrand their print real estate section with the name of the on line portal
Fairfax, on the other hand, own ALL of Domain and haven’t done the same, the fools, I wonder how they make any money at all sometimes. Yes their print real estate section is called domain but not with the .com.au after it I presume so the print section will not lose out to the on line product – they are truly pathetic.
20th March 2007
(I work at realestate.com.au/the REA Group)
Peter, thanks for mentioning this. This is about better serving agents. Once this rebranding goes into effect, we expect agents to get still more leads from advertising on our site.
I also happen to think that agents who already invest in advertising on realestate.com.au will get more credit from their vendors. Agents already tell their vendors, “Yeah, we’ll advertise your property in realestate.com.au.” Now, because vendors will see the realestate.com.au logo in their daily papers, they’ll be even happier to hear their agents say that.
dave
20th March 2007
(I work at realestate.com.au/the REA Group)
[3 days without Chiko Rolls and counting.]
Peter, you might also be interested in our new realestate.com.au Industry Advisory Council. The identities of its 8 members will be revealed at the Real Estate Institute of Australia Gala this Thursday evening, at the Four Seasons in Sydney.
But for now, I can say they are top real estate industry leaders—who manage more than 1,000 real estate agent offices across the country.
The Council will serve as the Peak Industry Body to provide guidance and advice to realestate.com.au. It will also discuss issues and opportunities facing the Australian real estate industry.
It’s another example of how hard we’re working to improve our understanding of agents needs, and our ability to provide for those needs.
Thanks!
dave
20th March 2007
The battle of the heavy weight contenders. Looks like News Limited and REA may be a tad concerned that Fairfax are shaping up too well for their collective likings.
It will be interesting to see how many rounds the bout goes and who has the knockout punch.
Saturday Domain in Sydney still lands the most lethal blows.
21st March 2007
Fairfax digital as a group are kicking News from what I can figure
22nd March 2007
It has started in Adelaide Town already!
The local Messenger FREE paper and the Adelaide Advertiser had articles talking about the rebranding of the Real Estate sections in these papers to http://www.realestate.com.au
JD
23rd March 2007
Most interesting to observe that in this weeks edition of The Mosman Daily – as reported here the Cumberland Newspaper Group (News Limited) have branded REA across all property pages in the real estate section. Yes, an interesting branding decision that obviously favours REA where News Limited have a controlling interest – however many doubt that they will ever own this portal.
From our recorded data REA struggle against Domain, so it will be very interesting to see if this new branding in a very strong community newspaper improve their traffic for local agents.
Our March figures will not be indicative, however the April figures should. I will make a prediction that traffic will not change immeasurably given that the problems for REA in affluent suburbs commence when an interested party starts typing in their URL.
Indeed an interesting online measurement.