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Opinion
Video: How to win new business
Mumbrella Question Time saw the panel asked the secrets of winning new business. Read more »
Let’s stop the anonymous vitriol
In this guest posting, Peter Bray, boss of The Brand Shop, takes issue with negative comments from anonymous posters on Mumbrella and elsewhere.
There are very few ads that I vehemently dislike. There are also very few ads that I really love. But most ads I see on Mumbrella and other blogs I can usually take something from, whether it is information about the brand, a bit of inspiration or a “watch out”. I’m open to learning as much as I can from others, and encourage those around me to do the same.
My basic assumption, however, is that because an ad has been produced by a professional agency, and had the approval from the client, then the end result must be doing something right. Therefore, without knowing the practical rationale behind the ad, for me to have a strong opinion about whether it is great advertising would be kind of arrogant. There is a reason that awards shows ask for information about why an ad was created: they are rarely judged on end product alone.
So as someone who enjoys watching the work that our industry creates, I am stunned at the level of vitriol stemming from some people’s comments in both this blog and others. Read more »
Read his lips
This is several weeks old, but worth a look. It’s certainly an original way to deal with media criticism.It features Air NZ boss Rob Fyfe responding to weekly current affairs magazine The Listener using the medium of sign language. Read more »
Let’s not be too positive just yet – the nail is still there
It’s more than a year since News Ltd’s marketing boss Joe Talcott used the memorable analogy of a dog whimpering on a nail to describe the structural change the industry needs to go through. Read more »
The AdNews numbers that mislead the market
It’s always a tad tawdry when competitors attack each other, but I hope you’ll bear with me…
Whether cynically or through incompetence, AdNews has been misleading its advertisers by providing them with data that seems to suggest they have six times their true online audience.
Allow me to present the evidence. Read more »
Technology will help us own the agenda – all day, every day
In this opening speech to the Future Forum of the Newspaper Publishers Association, News Ltd CEO John Hartigan argued that news organisations have the opportunity to become more rather than less relevant.
Today I want to talk about a tipping point that heralds the most exciting era for journalism. The most exciting era ever.
This tipping point is already upon us. It has arrived at lightning speed, with the explosion in demand for mobile devices.
I am not consigning newspapers to the scrapheap. Not by a long shot.
But this tipping point is going to change journalism forever. In my opinion, very much for the better. Read more »
The real time shit sandwich detector
In this guest post, Clive Burcham of The Conscience Organisation, relishes the instant feedback of social media.
I’ve been making brand driven content since 1996 and often I’ve been so close to the work that I couldn’t tell the difference between if we were chomping on a shit sandwich or savouring the crème de la creme. From an audience perspective, we wouldn’t know the difference for weeks or months. What excites me most now is that we know within 24 hours if we’ve developed shit or cream. Read more »
SMH shows how to make a home page takeover work
When you’re a commercial organisation, balancing the needs of consumers with the need to make money through ads is tricky.
Among the organisations that sometimes goes the wrong way in my view is Fairfax, with its autostart video ads, for instance.
But today, a bit of unreserved praise Read more »
Inside the Foxtel factory
Having been at the launch of Foxtel’s new season the other night, nine points occur… Read more »
ABC News 24 – a handy service for niche journalists
It may not have many viewers yet, but ABC News 24 saves specialist journos having to leave their desks, argues Delimiter’s Renai LeMay
When media commentators discuss the future of journalism, they usually agree on at least one thing: It will involve much fewer generalists and more reporters dedicated to exhaustively covering niche fields. Read more »
The seven ages of Carlton Draught’s Made From Beer
Today sees the launch of “Slow Mo”, the latest instalment of Carlton Draught’s irreverent Made From Beer series.
It’s been quite a run – from the highly awarded Big Ad, to the comedy of Flash Beer, to the debacle of the abortive banned Tingle campaign. These are the seven ages of Made From Beer… Read more »
Real consumers don’t have ‘brand conversations’. They use search
In this guest posting, Simon van Wyk argues that much as marketers might wish otherwise, most consumers don’t have emotional connections with brands
I have a background in marketing, but my understanding of branding seems at odds with the 2010 opinions I see from social media commentators, marketing and advertising agencies. Read more »
Hot, censoring atheists: Google’s insight into what punters think about pollies and journos
One of the charms of Google is autocomplete, where it takes a punt on what you’re going to ask, based on what the rest of the world has been wondering previously.
And it certainly gives a few insights into the high quality of political debate about the Labor leaders in the run up to the election.
Take NSW premiere Kristina Keneally… Read more »
The copyright-busting election
This is rapidly turning into the copyright-infringing election. Read more »
Digital Fail: The gaping void in digital training is failing our industry
In this guest post, Amnesia Razorfish’s Iain McDonald warns that the industry has fallen badly behind on digital training.
Before I get accused of trolling with that headline, I’ll state what I think is obvious: The current education system isn’t producing or nurturing enough ‘digitally skilled’ individuals to sustain a growing a digital economy. Read more »
Could Google kill Domain?
There was an announcement on the Google Australia blog on Monday that’s generated less conversation than one might have expected, considering it’s going to badly hurt real estate websites.
The search giant announced a new service which allows users to search Google Maps for properties for sale.
From the consumer’s point of view, it’s an incredibly good service. Give it a try.
You tap in the suburb and it shows you exactly on the map where properties – to rent or buy – are located. You can then click on the flag to find out more.
As a punter, I’ve never had much of an issue with the usability of Domain or realeastate.com.au. But this blows them away. I wish it had launched a few weeks back, last time I moved. For the user, it’s a better, easier, faster service.
And this is the problem for the property web sites. Once Google is delivering a high response rate to to the estate agents, why would they go anywhere else? And of course, it will also speed up the migration of property advertising away from print.
Mind you, if I was an agent, I’d be nervous too. If this takes off – which it will – property owners may ask themselves why don’t they simply list with Google, rather than have an estate agent do it for them.
This is going to be big.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
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Comments
8 Jul 09
1:14 pm
Realestate.com.au and Domain.com.au can only blame themselves if it does. I think I first saw google realestate for US about 4 years ago. It should hardly come as a surprise that it would eventually reach Oz.
8 Jul 09
1:16 pm
i don’t think Fairfax, realeastate.com.au will feel really threatened by this new service because they still dominate listings of homes for sale/apartments for rent etc and they haven’t allowed Google to use their raw listings data in this mashup
From a end users perspective if they all let their data feed into this service it would be massively useful .. especially since im looking for a rental property in inner Sydney at the moment
8 Jul 09
1:19 pm
I can see how this is going to give Domain a run for its money: simply by being able to see properties for sale on the streets you’re interested in is fantastic. But I don’t think it will change the decision to get an agent: there’s a lot more to selling a house than listing it online.
8 Jul 09
2:02 pm
This will inevitably eat into desktop browsing, but Domain’s iPhone app is killer! Actually easier to use than the old-fashioned browser. Its a major advantage having your Domain profile with you on a house hunt.
Google makes it up to Domain with Streetview, which has significantly enhanced online property search.
8 Jul 09
2:04 pm
What Google doesn’t appreciate and it may be cause for the paucity of the listings it provides at the moment, is that agents deal with Domain (and I assume RE.com.au) because of factors other than the quality of a mashup’s UI.
Fairfax pays massive subsidies or refunds or bulk discounts (to use polite terms, “kickbacks” is a term others may care to use but not I) to agents in return for their ads. I heard it said by an agent a number of years ago that agents can make more money from buying ads than they do from selling and renting houses.
In theory, this money for unused or refunded marketing budgets should be returned to the vendors but, I am told, this rarely happens unless the vendor jumps up and down.
And Fairfax (and, again I assume, RE.com.au) takes agents on junkets overseas and supplies them with all-expenses holidays. A mate of mine went on one of these to Cambodia a few years ago.
And in print the biggest part of any ad is promotion of the agent, not the vendor.
Domain has been using the Google Maps API for years, so not much new there.
Where this is likely to have an impact at least in the near term is on agents’ revenue themselves because they make a huge income from selling ads in their custom publications and on their sites.
For vendors who don’t need such a “marketing campaign”, they may feel freer to advertise and sell their houses themselves. This was the case for years in WA where groups such as Anreps were prominent. Less so in the Eastern States where the auction system was king but took a punishing series of blows from state laws.
As for the future, Google’s attempts is a poor cousin of zillow.com
8 Jul 09
2:14 pm
This has been a long time coming and (to us) is a welcome change. The existing sites charge exorbitant rates for listings/subscriptions and these costs are (of course) passed onto vendors as part of their “advertising package”.
Like others have said it is not as if the existing sites (who are all largely backed by newspapers who have seen their print RE advertising revenue shrinking) could not have seen this coming.
Interesting times ahead! this SHOULD translate to lower commissions and advertising costs from their current level and if it doesn’t I would encourage sellers to ask their agent why not. (or to look elsewhere).
Note also that as of late a lot of other sites such as domain and homehound have started to feel the winds of change and now allow private sellers to advertise on their sites. Admittedly for a large cost, but the change is starting.
8 Jul 09
2:55 pm
Agents who continue to push forward with great new sites themselves will have nothing to fear from Google but cannot afford to not put their properties on the new system.
Bresic Whitney’s new site is a great example of adding value to the house buyer:
http://www.bresicwhitney.com.a.....0Point#top
8 Jul 09
2:57 pm
Re: Domain iPhone app
It’s missing one of the most important things a location aware iPhone app should have – “Around me”.
Why do I have to enter a suburb or postcode?
Anyway, this comment isn’t relevant to this thread.
Still, this is another step to Google becoming the mega-aggregator of structured information. Very similar to what they’ve done for restaurants.
8 Jul 09
3:31 pm
I love the way you can enter your preferences and suburb and then you can drag the map and view properties in other suburbs nearby. It is so user friendly and effective for location hunting.
The data is from various sources and that could be the down side here. I tried to click on photos and it was not a great experience. However Google could use it’s own photo site and hey presto, it would be a killer.
In Sydney viewing days are traditionally Wed and Saturdays. Imagine sitting at a cafe at 9am with a coffee and looking on your phone where the next and nearest open house is… Now that has long legs. Get those viewing times uploaded, into Google maps – booom!
Go Google and it will be interesting to see what develops further here.
8 Jul 09
3:57 pm
No Google will not kill either Domain or Real Estate Dot Com. There is room for both. Having worked in the property industry for 40 + years there is ever more comment about sales people & consumers becoming too reliant upon electronic formats of promotion. This is making estate agents lazy, except those who still maintain a high level of personal contact. Google has been a tool in the space for a long time, but is just that another tool. Person to person contact is still the winner. But yes I do agree that both the big sites are terrible to use and they have turned into revenue cows. A big mistake. Google might just encourage them to improve their offer and give better value to consumers & advertisers.
8 Jul 09
4:38 pm
wow!
time to start looking for a new home.
8 Jul 09
4:45 pm
It’s a good mashup.
Makes me wonder. How hard would this be to do with hotels? A map of the hotels available where I am looking to stay would seem fairly easy to do using the data from wotif et al. Add on some decents pics of the rooms etc and you would be onto something that could potentially have far more frequent usage and give google a better ROI..
8 Jul 09
7:01 pm
As a landlord, this beats Domain and the other one hands down.
8 Jul 09
7:21 pm
Interesting but it’s solving a problem that doesn’t exist in my opinion. It’s making something that’s already pretty good a little bit better. To “kill” something (like Goog did with AV) you need to completely change the game and I’m unsure this does that.
Remember too – some of Google’s biggest clients are the Real Estate classifieds sites. There’s too many zeroes in the bottom line on those key accounts for them to attack them directly.
8 Jul 09
7:24 pm
@Rodney
But isn’t the old saying “location location location”?
This is literally location. You can look at a top down map simply and pick exactly where you want to live. You can turn on satellite and see the colour of the roof, when the transport is, etc.
Agents while useful need to learn to adapt. This is probably going to be one of those ways.
8 Jul 09
10:03 pm
It’s the plan from the very start. Google is like all very large corporations, they want to make money for their shareholders.
9 Jul 09
9:35 am
How do you get a property listing onto the Google Real estate?
9 Jul 09
10:42 am
Try suburbview.com (no .au, realestateview squatted the .au domain). Melbourne based startup that mashes real estate listings and Google maps. They pull listings from a range of major sites.
Google’s effort is solid, but suburbview is a generation ahead in both search and scope.
9 Jul 09
11:01 am
Old form classified including Domain, RealEstate.com.au and Seek should be destroyed by Google – they offer very little value – their search product are abysmal compared to Google and they charge like a stuck pig for yet again questionable yield
9 Jul 09
3:51 pm
I’m not sure about Google “killing” http://www.domain.com.au/ or http://www.realestate.com.au/ but they sure have some catching up to do from an user experience point of view.
From personal experience these leading Australian real estate sites both lack at least these basic features:
1. Humane keyword based search that gives you exact, reliable search results based on obvious queries like “Austin St, Manly NSW”
2. Search and narrow search results based on floor area (squares or square metres). Searching by just the number of bedrooms is insufficient.
By virtue of being Google their real estate search solves the first one seamlessly, and there’s provision for the second one as long as the incoming data feed includes the floor area information, which may still be an issue.
In fact, the inability to search residential real estate by floor area is such a glaring omission that I recently wrote an article about it:
http://www.volkside.com/2009/0.....loor-area/
It’s good to see fresh competition stirring up the market.
14 Jul 09
2:04 pm
As someone who actually runs Domain accounts in my regional city, I can vouch that at least outside of capitals in each state we don’t give much to our agents in the way of kickbacks, but they do get free online ads with their print advertising, which is how most of them work here. The most they get is an invite to the client christmas party, which is some woolies platters and a movie
I personally like this, and I guess it’ll depend on price and the market of specific areas – here for example print still does well.
Almost every one of my clients are on both Domain and RE.com.au. As a buyer/renter my favourite part of Domain over RE.com.au is that I could view private listings that have come from classifieds etc as well as agent listings. The attachment to a paper worked for me in that respect and if the cost is high, private advertisers may not have the budget to afford it.
27 Jul 09
4:43 pm
I was reading The Age today and the lead story on the Business section was Fairfax and News Ltd talking about pulling their spends from Google around driving traffic to their real estate classifieds sites if they continue to try and compete against them on one hand, but on the other take their money …
Funny that.
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