Arnie’s Realestate.com.au adverts ‘memorable and slightly disruptive’, says marketing chief
Property business Realestate.com.au has said a desire to create a “memorable and unexpected” marketing campaign was behind its decision to use Arnold Schwarzenegger to front the repositioning of the brand.
The Hollywood star will feature in seven TV adverts, the first of which aired last night, along with digital and print material over the next 12 weeks.
In the campaign, Schwarzenegger confuses Australia for Austria and, accompanied by hapless assistant Dylan, goes through a comedy or errors in his quest to find the perfect home.
Realestate.com.au group manager marketing strategy Natalie Feehan described the multi-million dollar campaign as “disruptive” in that it goes against the traditionally conservative advertising undertaken by most property businesses.
“We wanted to create something memorable and unexpected and that was slightly disruptive,” she said. “What you usually see from real estate websites in terms of advertising is fairly predictable. We wanted to do something that was unique and engaging. It’s more than just a TVC. There are many layers and the content is rich and deep. The advert that screened yesterday is just the start of the story. It will get funnier and funnier over the next few months.”
Feehan said RealEstate.com.au had been working on a brand repositioning for 12 months with the intention of shifting the perception that it is just a “rational and functional listings site”.
“All the research kept indicating that consumers loved us because we had the most listings on our site,” she said. “But ultimately we want to have a deeper relationship with our customers. Internally we have a strong brand and we are known as being innovative…..but externally people don’t really know much about us.”
Feehan said Schwarzenegger will discover products and services featured on the website as the adverts roll out and he continues his journey to find a home.
“Through Arnie’s discovery of realestate.com.au we get to see other parts of the site that are helpful for consumers like suburb profiles, sold price information, investment data and editorial content,” she said.
After devising the new strapline, Australia lives here, Realestate.com.au set about bringing the campaign to life, Feehan said.
“We were presented with three ideas and two of them were what you’d expect and would have done the job but would not have been particularly memorable,” she said.
“My first thought when they unveiled Arnie was where are they going with this? How could he possibly be aligned with our brand? But it became clear very quickly what we could do.
“We are not using him as an ambassador and he is not endorsing the brand. Arnie is just the vehicle for the story to be told.”
Realestate.com.au roadblocked across all free-to-air TV last night as well as the major digital advertising networks at 6.20pm in what it called a “high impact” launch.
Feehan declined to disclose how much money Schwarzenegger was paid but claimed it got “great value for money” and described him as a “true professional”.
“I was surprised he agreed to do the ads on the basis that to a certain extent he was the butt of the joke, but he was fantastic,” she added.
Steve Jones
If it takes that much explaining, it ain’t disruptive. Also how can you claim great value for money when the results aren’t in? Scary.
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These are great ads. Looking forward to seeing the roll out of the campaign. Definitely better than all other real-estate ads in recent memory.
@Advice – you’ve obviously never had an ad that’s received any trade coverage, more often than not marketers explain the reasoning behind the campaign when asked. Also, great value can be attributed to a number of factors. Maybe they got Arnie to do 10 different ads for a reasonable fee… that would be great value in it’s own context. Or maybe he’s just a top bloke and hanging out with him for a couple of days while shooting the ads was just a great way to spend the company coffers.
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Yeah I loved it. Different approach and it’s worked. I reckon the punters will remember it.
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@JohnKimble No great value can only be attributed to results, not the fact that they may have got production on the cheap, or that he got to hang out with Arnie ( don’t we all ). And as for the explanation, disruption is something that can be seen by the average punter (think Uber, Apple, AAMI, Tesla) if the trade press need this much of an explanation then it seems very contrived.
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I’m not sure Melbourne Real Estate Agents would appreciate the timing of these ads &/or investment for that matter considering REA (realestate.com.au) are currently contemplating upping their advertising rates significantly which means vendors (home sellers) will be paying more to market their homes! Naturally I will be watching this space with interest.
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News and Fairfax threw their toys out of the pram, when Google saw the ability to make browsing real estate listings easier for the user. These two old school publishers continue to harvest the river of real estate publishing gold, however, will it be for much longer? They really have a monopoly, don’t they? Is it because Real Estate Agents are not savvy? (I think a few of the agents have investment in REA Group though don’t they?)
Surely, what with the gigantic amounts of marketing dollars spent by the likes of Ray White, LJ Hooker et al; these agents could spend on making their websites functional, looking amazing and of course índexable” and then allow an aggregator, like Zillow to scrape their content? Or of course just provide an xml feed? Or will Google, finally have the balls to offer the user a better experience and Realestate and Domain go the way of The Yellowpages? Imagine if Murdoch owned Google, he wouldn’t think twice about cutting off any competitor, however Google do have an ethical stand point, fortunately for News and Fairfax…
Is Zillow going to launch down under? Packer threw a ton of cash into it, it will be interesting if it does? The usability is leagues ahead of both REA and Domain.
I certainly think that there is a better model for users and these two sites are old school. The business models are $’s first instead of users, which must give them an expiry date?
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Real estate agents complaining about fees?? They’ve been making a killing the last decade on inflated property prices and an overheated housing market…greedy.
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Domain and REA are on borrowed time with their archaic website layout and no frills apps. These websites are the trading post of property searching and are past their use by date.
The market is crying out for a listings aggregator that is easier on the eye and provides pricing history at no cost to the user.
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#8 I’m not sure you need an aggregator when almost every listing is on both Domain and REA websites.
As for pricing information either Domain or REA would do well to buy Onthehouse.com.au and integrate some of their information into live and sold listing data.
More transparency on sold pricing will mean they’re much more useful tools for buyers which makes them the only choice for sellers.
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@I wonder.
If real estate agents only had to pay, say a quarter, of what they pay today for listings then I see a land grab ahead for a player who creates a fast, easy to browse and highly relevant site (could be an aggregator) that could certainly kill off REA and Domain. I agree that both models, unless they adapt immensely, could be dead and I am amazed that they still hold so much weight today.
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The gaff about pricing of realestate.com.au is stupid – It is a similar model the print industry. Your paying higher for an area like Toorak or Elwood and lower for Sunshine for the same ad. Shake up / Sense, people won’t care about some new site with a flashy front end if it has bugger all listings and lacks all the data I can get from realestate.com.au. Check out neighbourhood profiles next time your in the market to buy a house (as I am). Not forgetting how much marketing cost it would require to take a bite out of realestate.com.au and Domains market share even if it was cheaper to list.
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