The National Association of Realtors and realtor.com announced today that they are joining forces to launch a marketing campaign aimed at highlighting the value that Realtors and realtor.com offer consumers.
The joint campaign marks the “largest cooperative action of the two organizations to date and underscores the deep level of commitment between the NAR and realtor.com,” realtor.com said.
“We are helping consumers understand that our organizations are working closely together like never before to bring the power of our trusted resources to buyers and sellers,” said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of realtor.com operator Move Inc., in a statement.
The team effort will fuse the trade group and real estate portal’s marketing campaigns into a “cohesive and united front” that promotes Realtors and realtor.com as the optimal sources for “timely, accurate and comprehensive information and sound, trusted advice.”
The campaign includes a “significant” marketing commitment from both NAR and realtor.com to advertise to consumers on national television and radio beginning this summer.
The new campaign seems to be another sign of improving relations between NAR and Move since the trade group approved significant changes to the realtor.com operating agreement in July 2013. At NAR’s annual meeting in November, NAR CEO Dale Stinton told attendees that while NAR’s consumer advertising campaign had previously focused on pointing people toward HouseLogic, NAR’s homeownership website, it would now point to realtor.com, which he called “our consumer website.”
NAR’s ads have referenced realtor.com before, but now the two entities will collaborate on messaging and distribution channels, NAR spokeswoman Stephanie Singer told Inman News.
“In the past, our respective advertising efforts ran in tandem, but messaging and concept development was completely separate,” she said.
The new campaign also includes “a significant joint fiscal commitment, supporting awareness initiatives beyond the mention of realtor.com in ads,” Barbara O’Connor, Move’s chief marketing officer told Inman News.
Move declined to comment further on what those initiatives would be, but said that the ads promoting realtor.com in NAR’s current “Market Momentum” ad campaign were not part of the joint campaign launched today. New, jointly produced ads will launch in the coming months, Move and NAR said.
NAR’s “Market Momentum” campaign launched in August 2013 and will include nearly 22,000 national spots through which the trade group says it will reach the consumer an average of 22 times via 3.9 billion impressions in 2014. Its TV ads encourage consumers to “make a move” by calling a Realtor and visiting realtor.com.
Zillow and Trulia, which have overtaken realtor.com as the leading national real estate search portals, are also conducting national marketing campaigns to grow consumer audience.
Zillow will spend $65 million on a national consumer marketing campaign and Trulia has earmarked $45 million for its effort. Move had previously announced plans to launch its first-ever national TV ad campaign in March, but did not reveal how much it would spend.
Move and NAR also joined forces last month in filing a lawsuit against Zillow and former realtor.com president Errol Samuelson for alleged breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and misappropriation of trade secrets after Samuelson joined Zillow as chief industry development officer.