Fine & Country Present Revolutionary New iPad Adverts On The Times News App

Global estate agency, Fine & Country is harnessing the rapidly growing trend of people reading their preferred newspaper on a mobile computer, otherwise known as a ‘tablet’, by advertising on the award winning Times News App and showcasing live content of all its luxury properties for sale from its website.  Influentially, the leading tablet, the Apple iPad has clinched over 55 million*** sales worldwide, including 3.5 million** within the UK.  This has been instrumental in driving a 14.4% increase last year in online advertising, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau.  As a result, Fine & Country is dramatically increasing the reach of its properties by advertising on the Times News App (in the general section) over the next 90 days.

Fine & Country is harnessing this trend by advertising on the award winning Times News App (in the general section) over the next 90 days, showcasing live content of all its luxury properties for sale from its website.

Fine & Country is once again embracing the latest technology to market vendors’ homes to the widest possible audience, having recently launched eye-catching interactive lifestyle adverts which are user-friendly and provide an immersive experience for the consumer, without having to leave the Times application. These Fine & Country advertisements contain imbedded links to: a National Property Search that promote each of the 3,000 UK properties and a further 9,000 worldwide, thus all properties for sale in a single newspaper; online forms to easily book viewings or free valuations, the Fine & Country Marketing Services, as well as interaction with the Fine & Country Facebook Page, Twitter Feed and YouTube Channel with ‘videoettes’(short film clips).

In addition, each advert has a ‘theme’ which changes twice a week to keep the readers interest. The iPad permeates all areas of its users’ lives, at home, work, and travelling, creating an ever-evolving platform of digital disciplines - whether it be web links, applications or animated film.  This is ideal for presenting Fine & Country’s unique ‘videoettes’ of properties for sale.

The Times News App is an ideal opportunity for Fine & Country to promote all of its properties in the upper quartile (£450,000 upwards) in a modern and appealing way by engaging with a high net worth audience. The average household income of The Times News App reader is £109k and 33% are CEOs or Directors. New research from Viacom indicates that tablet owners report emotional connections to this device unlike any other in the household and 49% said tablets make them more effective at managing life, which bodes well for house hunters.

Commenting on Fine & Country’s innovative promotional iPad campaign Paul Harris, Sales Manager says: “This is the most exciting development of the Fine & Country brand in a long time. The new adverts provide an attractive new audience for our vendors to market to, whilst house purchasers have the ability to search property nationally at the touch of a button.  With thousands of properties for sale through Fine & Country, a great feature is that every single property is showcased on a one page advert as opposed to the limited 24 properties that appear in the traditional Sunday Times or Daily Telegraph print adverts which Fine & Country utilise weekly.”

Rowena Kenny of Four Communications says: “In the next year I think we will start to see circulations being classed as tablet as well as print, as users start to favour the online version. Newspapers are the ones that are really benefiting from the iPad/tablet revolution in the media short term and it is an area that is seeing tremendous investment by the media owners trying to be the first to adopt new technologies. It is good to see this leading estate agency brand realising the value of advertising on tablets early on in the game.”

To view Fine & Country’s interactive advert on the iPad, you will need to download The Times News App from the iTunes store. See: http://tinyurl.com/cp72kwo

www.fineandcountry.com

*The Times 27^th April 2012

**The Times iPad Media Pack (April 2012)

***CNN Money - http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/03/10/ipad-pre-sales-sold-out-worldwide-in-two-days/

Editors Notes:

Fine & Country specialise in selling homes in the upper quartile of the market (above £450,000) and is one of the leaders in this sector. Its licensees’ properties are distinguished in their individual character and/or their country location. The company has offices in 300 locations throughout the UK and in 12 countries internationally (Bahamas, South Africa, Egypt, Isle of Man, Qatar, Spain, Dubai, Channel Islands, West Africa, Mauritius, Malta, Namibia).  Fine & Country won Best Estate Agency Marketing and Best International Estate Agency Marketing 2011 at the International Property Awards, sponsored by Bloomberg TV.

Summary of Facts

• A leading media mogul recently predicted that the newsprint era would be over within 20 years and said that some believed that it could be history by 2017.* 
• At least 10 UK national newspapers have now launched a tablet edition or app
• Over 55 million consumers are connected to the internet via their iPad
• Fine & Country is the only estate agency group to be promoting their properties on The Times News Application for the next 90 days, available on iPad and all other tablets
• The Times App is currently the top paid news app in iTunes** 
• Online advertising increased by 14.4% in 2011