EasyProperty chief executive Robert Ellice yesterday hit back at agents who labelled his firm’s funeral march through central London marking the ‘death of traditional estate agency’ as crass and disrespectful.
The three-mile procession, complete with jazz band, marked the official launch of Ellice’s firm into sales.
Ellice marched at the front or sat in the hearse as ‘chief mourner’, while ‘estate agents’ in pin-striped suits carried mobile phones clasped to their ears, crying “it’s the end”.
Some of the ‘agents’ carried wreaths, while others held boards proclaiming ‘RIP Fat Fees’.
Agents took to the EYE website throughout the day yesterday to vent their anger.
Mark Rowe, managing director of Rowe Property Services, said: “There’s only one word for this – vile. At what point does PR become disrespectful? The PR company and sleazyProperty need to think about what a funeral actually means.”
However, speaking to EYE at the end of the march by the London Eye, Ellice dismissed suggestions the march was in poor taste. He said: “It is obviously very tongue in cheek and is just a bit of fun as to how we see the future.
“The traditional market has got to change to reflect what consumer behaviour wants. If they change to what the consumer wants, then they will survive and so will everyone else who actually looks at an industry like that. If they don’t then they will not.
“If you look at the agents (coming out of their offices along the march) they were joining in with the guys at the back of the procession today. Nobody was offended. It was a great laugh and everyone was enjoying it.”
Simon Bradbury, director of Fine & Country in St Neots, said he did not find the stunt in bad taste, adding “people are far too easily offended these days,” but he did say he felt it ironic that easyProperty needed to use the streets of London to proclaim the death of high street estate agency.
He said: “Spending money, for a firm that wants to keep unnecessary costs to a minimum, and using people, who are considered of minimal use to an online company, to conduct a publicity stunt in the high street to emphasise how useless and out of date the high street is, seems more of a story to me.
“They clearly don’t think that their online strategy is working enough for them, do they?”
To claim no-one was offended makes you a liar Mr Ellice, I was offended (and no Simon Bradbury I am not easily offended) I wasn’t the only one offended. The angry aggression shown by at least one of your protestors in the video posted on Youtube shows this was not the cheeky bit of fun you are claiming.
“It was only a bit of fun” is a cliché but not in a good way, ask any A&E nurse how often they hear that!
The only redeeming thing I can see about your stunt yesterday is the squirming, embarrassed, body language you displayed which shouted “This is not going down well, this is out of control, they are all pointing cameras at me, I am the only director up here”
Don’t you worry Mr Ellice we will make sure that Stuart Guy, Eachen and David all get their share of credit for the most ill-judged PR stunt many of us have witnessed.
Before I go did Sir Stelios really sanction this? Your Youtube video gives him full credit for the jollity.
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tacky & tasteless.
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19 seconds into the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pCF8RiiDR0) is the telling part… because rather than get into character and dress for the part, watch Ellice’s fingers drawn together tapping nervously.. the sudden twitch of his head…. the fixed grin…the fact he didn’t dress for the part or get into character.. wasn’t up there shouting RIP with the rest of them.. wasn’t waving his own board around.. tells you he wasn’t comfortable, doesn’t have the personality or charisma to pull off a stunt like that.. and after all this uncomfortableness, I can’t find the press column inches to support the effort.. nothing in the mainstream press.. nothing on local news.. so was it really worth it… Ellice, you’re like a little boy surprised at being the first to climb the hill before realising you’re on the wrong hill..!
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I’m surprised fellow director Guy Zitter hasn’t yet been able to pull a few press strings.. being an ex MD of the Daily Mail you would have thought a couple of phone calls and this stunt would be plastered all over the front pages.. after all.. Ellice is sounding the death knell for the entire nation’s high street estate agency industry so it has to be news worthy.. doesn’t it? (or perhaps Guy Zitter stayed in bed yesterday, hoping to avoid any association)
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Odd it’s not on their you tube channel.
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Did you check out Sir Stelio’s channel? he’s apparently the instigator of this, he gets a big credit for this ‘Cheeky bit of fun’
If Ellice manages to convince anyone this is a cheeky bit of fun Katie Hopkins should consider employing him as a PR advisor.
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A disgusting stunt in very poor taste.
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If i was a London agent with a board that had been “Mocked up” on the funeral i would be looking at my board supplier this morning and asking if they helped manufacture the boards that were a slight against my company as the colors look spot on, hard to achieve by a third party.
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nah anyone who can use photoshop knows they could use the ‘colour picker’ tool to find this. simple to achieve.
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I should think images of this cheap stunt will come back to haunt EasyProperty and Mr Ellice
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Morning All
Just to confirm we did not have any involvement in producing the boards that were used, most are our clients and we greatly value the business, I guess whoever did produce them is going to be looking to survive on all of the business from easyproperty!
If everything was solely down to cost I guess we would all be driving budget cars and shopping in the budget stores, there is never going to be a substitute for excellent service, excellent local knowledge offered by professional agents
Steve Gosney, Managing Director Kremer Signs
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EasyProperty do not care what Estate Agents think. They are getting PR worth hundred’s of thousands and their target is the consumer who hate estate agents.
People saying that this is their ‘Ratner’ moment need to step outside their insular world.
Millions more people now know about EasyProperty – It’s done it’s job.
Tasteless – yet, tacky, yes – Are easyproperty good? – Their results on lettings suggest it’s way behind EMoov and Purple Bricks.
But as PR stunts go, I think it was brilliant in achieving it’s objective.
Publicity.
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Mr Ackroyd
I agree with some of what you say. Note that, if you will, in your diary.
However you are being too ‘easy’ on them and you know it.
I’m certain that in this instance you won’t act like a sheep and follow their lead – because you know how messy that would get.
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Hi Glenn.. apart from here and other industry websites, have you seen any press coverage from yesterday?
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Interesting Martin – No.
However, EasyProperty and others prominent players in the online sector have 2 agenda’s
1) To build brand awareness for customers who pay for their service (I think they’ve failed on that score with this stunt
2) To build brand awareness for potential shareholders/Venture capitalists
They will have scored on no 2 – As they will use video clips and cuttings for their next round of funding.
TV ads – which have started for EasyProperty – and have been done by Purple Brick and no doubt EMoov will follow, are the worst performing in terms of cost per acquisition of a new customer.
Even Rightmove only goes on TV occasionally and then for only 10 seconds!
I know that it costs more to get the customer, never mind service them, than the initial price point. And i speak from experience having done this myself.
That means that the businesses lose millions each year, as the 3 major online agents already have. In fact – I’d like to know if any of them are doing what we do which is make a profit month after month.
But they are creating awareness for their potential shareholders.
The game that the online.com bubblers are playing is getting enough hype and interest so they can float, cash out and take their money.
So far, they’ve been able to get away with jam tomorrow promises, but for how long?
These companies need to start delivering profit and fast.
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Not really Glenn all that expense, organisation, humiliation and reputation sacrifice and the most up to date news story is date 24th September.
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A funeral is a bit of fun is it?
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I find it quite odd how anyone can state that a stunt involving a funeral, in other words someones death, was just “a bit of fun”.
If the remit of easyproperty was to achieve a bit of “fun” then this was a failure on a biblical scale.
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Any idea of the cost of this tacky pantomime? How many properties will you have to list to recover this waste of money?
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They’ve got to give the balance of the first 200 free listings away before they start to recover any outlay let alone this.
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And STILL 59 short, Robert! That’s despite their claim last week (or was it the week before…?) that they had 750 instructions ready to list.
Mr Ackroyd above said “EasyProperty do not care what Estate Agents think.” You only have to look at their latest instructions to realist that they don’t seem to care much about ANYTHING – including the legal requirements of marketing of a property – as this instruction: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-36635823.html does not display the EPC information as required by current Legislation.
Oh – and before some clever ****£ at EP comes up with the usual excuse that it is awaiting EPC – no it isn’t. It’s a 5-year old ‘new-build’ that comes with EPC when the first owners buy it – you just haven’t asked for it or downloaded it as it probably isn’t covered in your Fee to comply with Legislation. And the above ‘get-out clause’ CERTAINLY doesn’t wash with THIS property – http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-35923200.html – which appears to be the FIRST property you listed way back on 14 August.
Actually – I’ve just checked 15 properties at random – ten percent of your entire register – and can’t see a single EPC rating on any of them…
Funny, that…
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Well at least their deceit is getting more believable.
Remember “Easychris” and his 60,000 expressions of interest to advertise on lettings when it went live! – My sides are still aching from that one!
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FYI Whatever happened to EasyChris? – Was always worthwhile seeing his manic take on an industry he knew little about!
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Hi smile please. I would imagine that Mr easyChris will be embargoed to speak out until around 2020 by which time the company will be long dead anyway. Maybe the new CMO, Ms Tickle I think it is, would like to comment instead – after all this will go down as her opening hand…
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Oh, sorry – apparently it’s Tucker. Tess Tucker.
I could have sworn it was Tickle…
My b@lls-up!
;o)
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Easyproperty funeral stunt is nothing short of appalling. It’s not dissimilar to their launch at the natural history museum.
Fact is that these “stunts” do nothing to endear the public to “online agents”…..Far from continuously banging on about how much cheaper they are, they should start to promote themselves on the service they provide themselves……..but we all, including the public, know that this wouldn’t work either because their service is way behind that of a quality high street agent.
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