The Hindu Business Line : Realtors go on advertising binge

New Delhi May 13 The last few months have seen a massive communication blitz from real estate developers across media, be it television, print, outdoor or the Internet. Realty players such as Ansal, Parsvnath, Unitech and Omaxe have been making their presence felt, be it on prime time TV or front pages of newspapers.

"The ad spend of most developers has gone up by 100-200 per cent on the conservative side in the recent past," said Mr Sanjay Dutt, Deputy Managing Director of real estate advisor Cushman and Wakefield (India).

Why this sudden spurt in realty advertising? Analysts pin it down to increased competition among players and expansion to new territories, apart from lacklustre demand in this quarter due to higher interest rates on home loans. Compounding these has been the pre-IPO brand building of some of the major developers.

A slight slowdown in the real estate scenario in the last 6-8 months has necessitated companies to advertise aggressively, said Mr Dutt. Omaxe's CEO-Corporate Strategy and Finance, Mr Arvind Parakh, put his company's blitz down to its IPO as well as projects coming up in the vicinity of each other, compelling developers to publicise the USP of their project.

Interestingly, realty companies focus heavily on the print media to communicate their strengths. Mr Sunit Sachar, Parsvnath Developers Ltd 's Uttar Pradesh COO, explained why: "Print advertisements offer the cut and keep advantage, and have a longer shelf life, hence the lion's share of the budget is allocated to the print medium," he said, adding that Parsvnath spends around 65-70 per cent of its advertising budget on the print media, 5-7 per cent on radio and the rest on TV.

According to industry watchers, realty advertising has also been impacted by the fact that companies are diversifying from the traditional portfolio of commercial and residential into new segments such as SEZs, hospitality and hospitals. Besides, players entering premium segments such as villas and penthouses have no choice but to go in for high pitch advertising.

According to Mr Kunal Banerji, Vice-President, Marketing, Ansal API, with a spend of Rs 14-15 crore for above-the-line marketing, the company is even planning campaigns on Internet and international sales exercises.

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