In a move that will surely have the real estate industry talking, Century 21, a long-time television advertiser, has decided to pull all of its national TV ads in 2009, and shift this budget to online channels.
In a January 14, 2009 AdAge article, Beverly Thorne, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Century 21, stated that in years past the company has spent up to half of its advertising budget on television marketing. However, in an unprecedented move, the company will now focus the majority of that money to its online efforts in 2009. Mr. Thorne identified the ability online advertising, especially Search Engine Marketing, to directly target consumers interested in making a purchase in the near term as the main factor in making this decision.
To directly quote this AdAge Article, “With the beleaguered real-estate market showing no signs of a turnaround, the realtor has decided to play the numbers and go where the buyers and sellers are: online.”
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