KoStar Group, a $34 billion real estate analytics firm, launched four high-gloss commercials in its Super Bowl debut Sunday night, garnering more airtime than Pepsi or perennial favorite Budweiser. night.
The commercials are three for CoStar subsidiary Homes.com and one for another subsidiary. Apartments.com was just the beginning of a year-long advertising barrage planned for the emerging housing search portal. CoStar CEO Andy Florence said he hoped the media onslaught would help his company gain control over rival home search sites. Last year, Homes.com announced it had reached 100 million monthly visitors, falling short of Zillow but ahead of Redfin and Realtor.com.
Homes.com touts its $1 billion marketing effort on its website, describing the investment as “the largest marketing campaign in real estate history.” In the weeks following the big game, the website promises that “Homes.com will be seen everywhere from morning until late at night,” with continued advertising including radio, streaming platforms and prime-time television. The expansion will take place.
The 2-minute, 15-second ad, which aired during the Kansas City Chiefs game against the San Francisco 49ers, will likely cost a total of $35 million, according to Ad Age. The four ads were anchored by celebrities Jeff Goldblum, Dan Levy, and Heidi Gardner, and featured a cameo appearance by rapper Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne's alter ego negotiated with aliens and smashed the windows of a high-rise office building with a larger-than-life champagne cork. . The actors caused minor havoc in a residential area during their performance. Neighborhood scouting for prospective home buyers. And in not one, but two of his ads, Mr. Levy and Mr. Gardner flee danger aboard his Homes.com-branded helicopter, its blades flying over football games and quiet cul-de-sacs. It was flying around in the sky making a buzzing sound.
Advertising experts said Monday that the bid was likely to be successful.
“Companies sometimes make the mistake of running a Super Bowl ad and then disappearing,” said Mitch Berg, former president of media buying firm MediaEdge and the Syndicated Network Television Association. “If you do that, you'll reduce your profile. But if you're running for the Super Bowl as part of the launch of an ongoing campaign, it's a very smart way to gain reach.”
Cash-flush companies may also benefit from running four ads instead of just one, Berg said.
“If you look beyond Dan Levy and Heidi Gardner and Jeff Goldblum and analyze their commercials, what kept them coming back to commercials was a really simple thing: name recognition,” he said. Ta.
CoStar, which acquired Apartments.com in 2014, added Homes.com in 2021. Since then, the company has aggressively courted both real estate agents and homebuyers, while keeping its nose at competitors and deep pockets.
Florence, who founded CoStar in a dorm room in 1986, called the three rival sites Zillow, Realtor.com and Redfin “Ziltorfin” and said they were using bait-and-switch tactics to lure people into his home. I'm blaming. They arrest shoppers and sell their contact information to dozens of anonymous real estate agents.
A representative for Zillow declined to comment, and a representative for Realtor.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Redfin spokeswoman Alina Ptaszynski pointed out that unlike Redfin, agents are charged a fee to advertise themselves on Homes.com. She said brokers and the National Association of Realtors are facing legal challenges over commission rates, but huge marketing budgets only drive up costs.
“The billions of dollars spent on this whole extravaganza with Lil Wayne and the Super Bowl are just a sideshow if they don't help people move on to a better life,” she said. “And while there are massive lawsuits over high brokerage fees, the real question is who is paying for them? Agents spend thousands of dollars each month to appear on these portals. and that cost is passed on to the consumer.”
In November, at the National Association of Realtors' major real estate conference, Coster sponsored the largest booth in the Anaheim Convention Center's exhibit hall, plastered its logo on shuttle buses used by agents, and provided free private parking. Hosted a Goo Dolls concert. For participants.
The Super Bowl ad buys were the latest salvo.
In an interview with The New York Times in December, Ms. Florence recalled having dinner with Mr. Levy in London and laughing about a 2021 Saturday Night Live skit in which Mr. Levy and Mr. Gardner appeared. . In it, several SNL cast members scrolled through Zillow.com late at night in a phone-sex-like manner, and were subsequently inundated with calls from real estate agents.
These sites, Florance said, “are typically sold as leads to unaffiliated agents,” leaving homebuyers exposed to ruthless telemarketing. “That's a terrible customer experience,” he added. “As a real estate agent, you don't want Saturday Night Live to parody the consumer experience.”
At the time, Zillow CEO Rich Barton said: neglected the ribs The website formerly known as Twitter posted the following message: “Wait. Are we doing marketing? @zillow Have I been wrong all these years? ”
