Real estate is one of the lightest volume categories in the Ace Metrix database, with just nine brands airing one or more unique ads since the beginning of 2013. Despite that, the Real Estate category is also home to some highly effective creative, embracing themes that are both pragmatic (finance) and emotional (family) to connect with its audience.
Zillow has the highest average Ace Score (564) in the Real Estate category for the period January 1, 2013 through May 31, 2014. A relative newcomer among the ranks of national TV advertisers (its first ad aired in September 2012), Zillow’s recipe for success includes a healthy dose of information (visuals of people using the Zillow app to explore neighborhoods and look for a new home) combined with the emotion of bringing a family together. The brand with the second-highest average Ace Score, Coldwell Banker, also aired a series of highly emotive ads, but Coldwell’s ads scored much lower in Information (71 points lower than Zillow, on average), contributing to the 17-point Ace Score gap between first and second place.
If you missed this spring’s crop of real estate ads, you’ll have to wait until next year for volume to pick up again. Over the past few years, some 56% of all real estate ads broke in the first quarter and 80% broke in the first six months of the year. This seasonality aligns with the months that homebuyers and home sellers tend to be most active in the real estate market. We also note that category ad volume has picked up in recent years, coincident with new brands like Zillow and Berkshire Hathaway arriving on the national advertising scene. In 2012, there were 19 unique ads in the category, followed by 23 in 2013 and now 25 thus far in 2014. Based on historical seasonality, we expect ad volume this year to climb into the low- to mid-30s.
As noted above, emotion is an important aspect of real estate advertising. Families, children and pets often play starring roles in the ads of the top brands in the category. But which ads were most effective in combining high positive emotion, as measured by the Emotional Sentiment Index (ESI), with high overall effectiveness, as measured by the Ace Score? To answer that question, we assembled a list of the top real estate ads from 2010 to present, based on the combination of ESI outperformance and Ace Score outperformance, relative to the category norms. The list of top “Emotionally Effective Ads” (see the table below) shows that Coldwell Banker has aired the most spots that combine positive emotion with high ad effectiveness, with six of its ads among the top 10. Zillow is the only other brand to have more than one ad that made the list.
Real estate advertising is a high-stakes business, in which the marginal benefit of attracting new clients justifies the significant investment that real estate firms make in researching and executing their creative. The category offers a perfect example of how advertising effectiveness can and should be measured on multiple dimensions, including persuasion components (e.g., Information, Attention, Change), emotion and brand recognition.
We have a wealth of additional detail on this subject, which we’re happy to share among those who are interested in learning more about this category. Drop us a line if you’d like a follow-up. And keep your eye on our blog for additional category insights later this year.
