Equinox and Connect land £4.5m Rightmove contract

Rightmove.co.uk, the property website, has hired Equinox Communications and integrated agency Connect to handle its &£4.5m media and advertising business.

PHD Rocket previously handled media but Rightmove parted company with the agency at the beginning of the review. Creative and media agencies pitched in pairs, although West Midlands-based Connect did not pitch alongside Equinox, which is part of Publicis Groupe. Connect pitched against five agencies – Publicis, Blac Agency, Omobono, Oxfordshire-based Mark-Making and KDM – to win the business.

The agencies will support consumer and trade promotions for the property portal. A consumer campaign featuring television, outdoor, press and radio work will break in January, with trade executions appearing before the end of the year.

Rightmove recorded more than 386 million page impressions in August. The number of advertisers on the site has jumped by more than one-fifth in the past year as property companies shift a greater proportion of their budgets online. It gained more than 5,000 new advertisers in the past six months.

The company says that growth has been particularly strong among estate agents, lettings agencies and new homes developers across all parts of the country. Its revenue has almost doubled in the past year to &£15.1m for the first half of the 2006, as the average price advertisers have paid has risen by 22% to &£181 per month.