Two baldies fighting over a comb
As everyone knows, as well as being a consultant to proptech founders getting them from MVP to exit, in all sectors of the real estate world; in a former life I was an estate agent for over 30 years, mostly in the independent sector. So I always have a sweetspot for defenders of this hard hit sector and in many ways Mal McCallion is one of the top names doing just that.
Here reproduced in full is Mal boiling down the present portal wars, and more importantly asking agents – independent and corporate to throw off the shackles of a huge portal spend and realise ‘people doing property’ now search very differently than logging onto a portal, and agents utilising AI can win back and own their own marketplaces, without having to pay huge licence fee increases each year to Rightmove.
It is worth mentioning also that Mal is about to go on a huge tour of the country in person talking to agents – to show them what new tools they should be considering to ensure they are front and centre of buyers sellers landlords and tenants when they are thinking of engaging with an agent. You can contact Mal McCallion for full details using this LINK.
Here then is what is on Mal’s mind today,
‘OnTheMarket had a big advertising push in September last year, one of the busiest months in the property calendar and – on OTM’s dashboard at least – overtook Zoopla in terms of traffic. OTM then blanket-advertised that it was the number two portal, now.
Zoopla took exception to this and, in a rare public intervention, its CEO Charlie Bryant released a PR statement complaining about OTM’s tactics. Clearly he remained furious for long enough to send a strong letter to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) too. It’s taken a while but now the ASA has ruled that OTM should +not+ have been so slapdash in its claiming of the second spot and it must not do it again. Cue Zoopla’s victory lap in the news today.
But what’s this? Right alongside Zoopla’s crowing story is an advert for OTM stating that agents think that site is better value for money!
And below that? One from Zoopla itself saying that +consumers+ prefer it to OTM!!
A reminder how advertising works – you pay thousands of pounds of your hard-earned revenue, from clients, to create and distribute a message that you hope will win more.
So these two sites are throwing huge amounts of money (and time, from CEOs to Marketing Teams) at each other to try and win a battle for – checks notes – second place in a race.
They aren’t even bothering to go after the market leader, Rightmove – in fact, to really show how much they’ve lost sight of what’s important here, they actually advertise Rightmove’s name in their ads as well! (And Zoopla openly admits that sellers prefer RM to itself, in an advert that it’s paying for!!!)
Sheesh.
And then, of course, in the same newsletter we have the stealth story from Rightmove, showing an absolute disregard for anything the other two are doing. It’s simply talking about how it’s running a multi-zillion pound ad campaign again, same creative as last year, because it’s not wasting money on agents. Not mentioning anyone else. Just a timely reminder that it’s the Big Dog.
Here’s a plea to Zoopla and OTM: please, please join up. Stop wasting your (and agents’) money fighting each other over the title of ‘Best Also-Ran’ and use that to battle Rightmove instead.
Last week RM confidently told the City that it’s on course to increase revenues by 10%, 4x the rate of inflation. That’s coming from one core source – estate and letting agents’ hard graft.
We need serious competition with Rightmove in this industry, not two bald portals fighting each other over a second-rate comb. It’s time for something different, I guess.
So let the alternative ‘Rightmove Resistance’ commence’. –
Written by Mal McCallion CEO of ModelProp – to find out more please use this LINK.
Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR
Andrew Stanton Founder & Editor of 'PROPTECH-X' where his insights, connections, analysis and commentary on proptech and real estate are based on writing 1.3M words annually. Plus meeting 1,000 Proptech founders, critiquing 400 decks and having had 130 clients as CEO of 'PROPTECH-PR', a consultancy for Proptech founders seeking growth and exit strategies. He also acts as an advisory for major global real estate companies on sales, acquisitions, market positioning & operations. With 200K followers & readers, he is the 'Proptech Realestate Influencer.'
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
- Andrew Stantonhttps://proptech-x.com/author/andrew-stanton/
