OnTheMarket deal with Country Life sets up new property search

Glossy magazine Country Life and OnTheMarket have agreed a portal partnership that looks set to squeeze out corporates.

While the likes of Countrywide’s John D Wood and Hamptons brands will still be able to advertise in the magazine if they wish,  they cannot list properties on the Country Life property portal, which as of last week is powered by OTM.

The new deal creates a co-branded online UK property search on the magazine’s website.

The function brings to an end an unsatisfactory stalemate for the UK’s high-end agents which meant they could advertise in the magazine but not on Country Life’s portal because of OTM’s ‘one other portal’ rule.

Country Life now have the satisfaction of seeing their main agents, including Knight Frank which always has the first page of advertising in the magazine, back on its website.

The deal also means further coverage for all OTM agents – not just the magazine’s advertisers – who will now have all of their properties listed on the Country Life portal, which was previously powered by Homeflow.

OTM said that the strategic move had been welcomed by its 5,000-plus member agents across the UK.

Country Life launched its property portal in 2007.

Its traditional advertisers include Knight Frank, Strutt & Parker, Savills, Winkworth, and the likes of Hamptons International and John D Wood – the latter two being Countrywide’s upmarket brands which are not on OTM.

When OTM launched, its ‘one other portal’ rule encompassed the Country Life portal, meaning that OTM agents could choose to advertise on Country Life, but if they did so, could not use both Rightmove and Zoopla.

In practice, the agents mainly dropped all portals in order to stick with Rightmove.

Country Life, whose advertising agents in the magazine now almost inevitably carry the OTM logo, has publicly acknowledged that OTM has grown in influence.

Jean Christie, Country Life publishing director, said: “The property market has always been one of our key priorities, both in our weekly magazine and online.

“We work closely with high-end agents to provide a unique environment that attracts a discerning and high net worth audience, who have the money to invest in beautiful houses.

“We’ve seen the tremendous success of OnTheMarket in attracting so many of the leading prime agents in the UK and we envisage the business continuing to grow.

“We see a major opportunity for our readers, for our website users, for our agent advertisers and for our business in providing a co-branded online search service, powered by OnTheMarket.”

Ian Springett, chief executive of OnTheMarket, said: “A recent issue of Country Life carried 53 pages of prime property advertising from agents and 52 of these pages were from members of OnTheMarket.

“It makes excellent commercial sense to build on the common interests of our two businesses, our member agents, their clients and the broad property-seeking public.

“Visitors to the Country Life website will be able to access the properties listed by all OnTheMarket members across the UK.”

It is not yet clear how the corporates’ upmarket brands, and other non-OTM members, will view advertising in Country Life magazine if they cannot be on the new co-branded portal.

The latest pre-Bank Holiday edition of the magazine is very thin on advertising, carrying just nine pages. Not one of the few advertisers is a non-OTM agent.

Originally posted here

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