With house prices falling and interest rates rising, Kiwis needed a trusted source of information on property more than ever. For Trade Me, this presented an opportunity to showcase its expertise.
Hijacking housing headlines
The popular New Zealand marketplace has long been a leader in the property space, but has faced stiff competition in recent years as the market boomed. It launched a ‘Hijack the Headlines’ campaign to reinforce its position as the go-to for property market expertise.
In the lead-up to 2021 the New Zealand housing market had reached record new heights, with housing affordability the number one topic. In 2022 however, for the first time in over a decade, the housing market began to shift in favour of the buyer. The market dropped 12.4 percent in a year alone.
This sudden shift caused anxiety for both buyers and sellers – they didn’t know who to trust for accurate information. Not only were New Zealanders living in the wake of a misinformation and conspiracy-fuelled post-pandemic world, but the very institutions they looked to for trust in economically difficult times were letting them down.
Every economist had different opinions on how far interest rates and inflation had to rise, and how far house prices would drop, which was not easing people’s newfound anxiety.
To make matters worse, distrust in the Government had grown nearly 10 percent since the start of the pandemic with no sign changing any time soon.
In this environment, Trade Me saw that trust was the thing consumers were looking for. the greatest way to build trust was to align with New Zealand’s most trusted local content provider and beloved New Zealand brand in its own right -TVNZ One News. With a viewership of over one third of the population, One News wasn’t only the most trusted news program in New Zealand, it had the highest consistent viewership.
Working with TVNZ’s Blacksand, Trade Me created a collection of 60-second TV commercials using TVNZ news journalists, presenting a current affairs style update of the property market. These commercials would have the same look and feel as One News, blending seamlessly into their nightly broadcast, but running in commercial airtime as a true-first-in-break.
The Trade Me Property Housing Market Updates ran for six weeks across September and October 2022, in conjunction with Trade Me Property brand commercials, reinforcing Trade Me as the trusted source of truth for property.
By aligning with the trusted real estate of One News, Trade Me’s campaign built trust with Kiwis and increased brand preference and usage of the Trade Me Property platform. Outside of Trade Me’s objectives, the Trade Me Property Housing Market Updates were also widely enjoyed by Kiwis, achieving 75 percent likability.
Category:
Best Media Campaign
Company:
Trade Me
Marketing Initiative:
The Headline Hijack
Marketing Partners:
MBM, Perceptive Research
Judges’ Comments:
“A clever, disruptive use of a conventional channel. A literal ‘hijack’ with impressive results. Great alignment of their campaign and their marketing objectives.“
This article was originally published in the September/October 2023 issue of NZ Marketing. Click here to subscribe.
