Breaking laws, stealing data, celebrating themselves.

They are strategic partners in crime: the largest media group and the largest search engine for cars and houses in the country work quite well together

If you happen to catch RTL on TV in the morning or afternoon, you will be offered very special formats: AtHomeTV and LuxAutoTV. What sounds and looks like a regular commercial is one. But just because it is cheaply produced does not mean that these advertisements are not highly effective and profitable and – who would have thought – bring hidden interest.

You see a kind of PowerPoint here – overexposed amateur recordings of cars or houses, a sheet with some key data, a price and a QR code. Cars and real estate are popular culture in Luxembourg and so advertisements are also the daily bread for RTL. So much as usual. But the cars and houses are not simply part of a normal advertisement. LuxAuto and AtHome are not just ordinary companies that, like any other, want to show their products on the only TV in the country. They are both part of the atHome Group Sàrl. and have a special partnership with RTL.

Strategic Partners in Crime

Founded in Luxembourg in 2001, atHome offers a platform for the sale of real estate and cars. Not only in Luxembourg, but also in Germany, France and Belgium, the online portal has an offer. In 2017, the company was sold to Oakley Capital, the private equity firm of a British investor known as a major donor to the Conservative Party. Subsequently, atHome was able not only to defend but also to expand its market-leading position in the Luxembourg market by acquiring the car advertising platform “LuxAuto” in 2018. In 2020, they were then sold by a British financial investor to another and Mayfair Equity Partners bought the majority share of Oakley Capital. The Oakley boss also thanked atHome CEO Soufiane Saadi for his good work and said that he was looking forward to the future with the new investor, to grow even more. (Source)

Soufiane Saadi is the captain of the atHome ship, and not just literally in an embarrassing company video. He knows how to adapt to keep growing. In 2021, Soufiane Saadi had the brilliant idea: atHome Group will become an exclusive partner of RTL. Did he learn this from the media presence of the people at „taxx.lu“, a company that was presented in an RTL format and then acquired by the atHome Group? Or did he get the idea from his favorite book, the guide of a hedge fund manager, which he mentions in the RTL format “Interview am Interview”.

RTL and atHome have been linked since 2021 by a “strategic partnership”, a deal in which they help each other as their respective monopolies. In other countries, they would hide something like this, at least be ashamed of this market distortion, but here they are proudly announcing this unprecedented deal on their own platforms. “atHome embeds itself in your TV 📺 for 4 hours of broadcasting per day”, this is how they phrase it. Four hours of advertising every day, two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon. Basically completely illegal. Article 28 of the Media Act limits, based on an EU directive, the advertising that can be broadcast. But since RTL has nothing to fear from the regulatory authorities, this violation of the law can be sent directly as a press release. The same press release also hints that the advertising partnership is not limited to TV.

The rarest form of native advertising

The services of atHome Group have been integrated directly into the RTL website. RTL’s real estate search engine looks like an in-house service, the „Immo“ section is next to the „News“, „Culture“ and „Meteor“ sections. Only one well-hidden clue is visible: „Source of data: atHome.lu“. Similarly works the car search engine. RTL naturally hides (as it usually does) that this practical service is advertising. AtHome thus reaches the largest accessible audience in the country - more than any conventional advertising could ever do, they are seen both on the website and on TV with „atHomeTV“ as part of RTL. AtHome Group therefore also benefits from the credibility of a broadcaster that has been commissioned by the state as a „public service“. Hidden advertising is, as you might imagine, illegal - Art. 26 (5) of the Media Act.

But RTL of course also benefits from this deal. They have hours of content on TV, so they don’t have to produce anything themselves. By integrating the largest real estate search engine into their own site, traffic is generated. But traffic in this case is not just an abstract number with which other advertising clients are then persuaded to switch to rtl.lu advertisements, traffic is also data. Data, the most valuable resource in the world (The Economist, 2017).

Your data is well protected

The fact that massive amounts of data are being collected, and what happens to that data, was of course not mentioned when the proud announcement of the „joined forces“ between RTL and atHome came out. The data from both partners is still immense, allowing them to look directly into the population’s heads, or into their wallets. And both data combined? What articles did a person who was looking for a house in Belair read? At RTL, they are therefore reluctant to talk about the collection and evaluation of data. The situation is different at RTL’s advertising agency, the sister company IP. Here, they regularly boast to potential advertising clients of RTL that they have access to exclusive data through a partnership with the largest real estate portal in the country. „Zero and First Party Data“ would process IP from RTL, but also from atHome. The online behavior of the respective users can be documented, profiles can be created and individual interests can be recognized.

But what exactly is „Zero Party Data“? This could be information that the customers of atHome and LuxAuto have confidentially provided to this service themselves. Traditionally, this is data such as name, address, gender, etc. But it is often also about more specific information, which could quickly become extremely explosive, especially when it comes to large investments such as a car or house. atHome collects family status, income, when you move, how you finance everything, etc.. Does all of the data from atHome end up with IP? Does IP combine this data with data from RTL, with the aim of being able to place even better advertisements on RTL?

Too big to fail?

In their respective quasi-monopoly positions, atHome Group and RTL can simply allow themselves anything, there are simply no rules. This creates a strange kind of understanding of Luxembourg in which both companies create new realities together.

For example, RTL publishes an article entitled „Housing market: Real estate prices have fallen and rents have risen“, in which current statistics on price developments are included. However, these are not, as the title suggests, statistics from the housing market, but simply statistics from atHome.lu. RTL presents the graphics from atHome’s announcement in an image gallery and of course does not mention that they themselves have an advertising partnership with AtHome. AtHome is not a company that is directly affected by any news about the housing market, but is made to look like a kind of housing ministry. They can use the podium to make a political statement: “atHome expects that 2024 will be a transitional year, when interest rates will start to fall. The government’s fiscal measures could also improve the situation. A real recovery could then come in 2025.”

Ironically, RTL forgot the second half of the sentence here, atHome actually writes: “The fiscal incentives proposed by the government could create a short-term recovery, but would not be sufficient to revive the market in the long term”. But that certainly won’t hurt the good mood between RTL and atHome, no one can do anything to them.