Realestate.com.au Launches Spring Ad Campaign

Australia’s market-leading property portal realestate.com.au has launched its spring advertising campaign this week with four serialized TV ads that have a definite theme. The adverts centre around a middle-aged couple and their son looking to sell their house. The dad in this fictional family wants to sell off-market and his reasoning outlined to his wife and son is rebuffed by both using the logic that the more people see the property on realestate.com.au, the more competition there will be for the home and the better price they’ll get. The ads are available to view on the realestate.com.au’s Youtube channel.

The portal’s use of fictional characters to ridicule the idea of off-market selling is perhaps significant as new companies look to tap into the ‘passive activation’ market and attract sellers away from traditional portals. The dad character is portrayed as a bit credulous and not too bright with the tacit implication being that the common sense around selling your home should prevail and not any fancy notions of selling in a different way. In recent times companies that specialize in off-market ‘passive activation’ such as Listing Loop who have a more exclusive business model have sprung up and captured a slice of the market. It appears that REA Group has lined up these firms and their message for a bit of a takedown with the latest adverts. 

It’s certainly true that REA Group’s flagship property portal does have a dominant position with 12 million Australians reached in July alone and it’s no spoiler to reveal that realestate.com.au features in our infographic of top property portals in the region to be published later this week. The company recently delivered a solid set of financial results while its main Australian portal competitor Domain Group suffered a bigger hit on its bottom line over the same period.