Century 21 – one of the largest global real estate franchises has announced in the US that they will redirect investment in TV advertising to online marketing.
Century 21 has a franchise network in NZ of 60 offices, but has not undertaken any TV advertising for the brand here in the last couple of years.
This decision, one of the first by a major group is likely to be a common theme of the future marketing plans for real estate companies as faced with the contraction of the market and a growing appreciation of the role of online for real estate search, they will be keen to ensure more accountability for all marketing investment. Here as in the US the web is now by-far-and-away the most utilised and most intuitive way for property buyers to search for available homes to buy.
The trend away from newspaper advertising as evidenced in 2008 and reported in the US figures; was matched here in NZ with the local launch and closure of the aspiring NZ real estate publication “Property Book“. These facts further demonstrates how sensitive the print media market is to influence of advertising spend of the real estate industry. This must be of concern for all of the major publishing firms who have become so reliant on real estate adverts as a core staple of the advertising income of most papers and have yet to secure an online income of similar scale.
In the US last year further key events underlined this trend – most noticable being the closure by the LA Times of its real estate supplement and on a broader level the filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by The Tribune Group of papers of which the most famous would be the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times.
Century 21 is continuing to demonstrate forward looking market leadership; the writing is on the wall for the traditional print media and other major franchisors are bound to follow.
Further coverage of this from Advertising Age – the leading US industry publication. “Century 21 Moves Its National TV Money Online“