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Trulia has hired former Lytro and Intuit exec Kira Wampler as its first chief marketing officer, as the online real estate company preps for a $45 million ad campaign to launch by the end of this quarter.
The San Francisco-based company, which went public in 2012, has done little paid marketing in the past, CEO Pete Flint said in an interview on Thursday evening. But Flint said now is the time to raise awareness.
And that makes sense. Trulia’s main digital competitor, Seattle-based Zillow, has been performing well financially and launched a TV ad campaign this past summer. The company’s stock price has increased around 130 percent over the past 12 months.
But in an interview, Wampler said the focus of the ad campaign will not be about highlighting differences between the two companies, whose websites and apps give potential home buyers and renters ways to search for listings.
“I look at it less about the competitive set, and more about what’s going on for consumers,” she said. “Particularly for homebuyers going through what is on average an 18.5-month process that is full of unknowns.”
She declined to elaborate on the creative details of the ads, but said some aspects will focus on raising awareness for the brand while others will aim to drive more visits from existing users.
Wampler said the campaign, created by the ad agency Draftfcb, will run across television, as well as online radio and other digital platforms.
Wampler was most recently the vice president of product and marketing at the VC-backed camera company Lytro. She also spent several years at Intuit.
Flint first announced the planned marketing investment on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday evening. The stock was down more than 14 percent in after-hours trading, as the company fell short of earnings expectations.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
