Hotel Online Advertising – The Hotel Marketing Blog

Cheeky but effective – Captain Obvious Steals the Show for Hotels.com

These ads are both cheeky and brilliant, utilizing the features and limitations of the YouTube and Facebook ad platforms to their advantage.

Props to Hotels.com for their recent advertising campaign which features a character played by Brandon Moynihan called ‘Captain Obvious‘, who as you may have guessed, says and does things that are, well…obvious. Just like hotels.com would be the obvious place on the internet to book your hotel room?

Here’s an early ad from a couple of years ago:

What’s great about this campaign is not the fact that it’s tongue-in-cheek, but that in more recent efforts, it plays well to the ad and content formats available on YouTube and Facebook too.

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IKEA’s Perceptive Banners – Respectful and Effective Marketing

I loved IKEA’s latest display advertising effort. Acknowledging that over 60% of mobile banner clicks are actually accidental, IKEA shows users messages like ‘A slip of the thumb tap? That happens’ and ‘Really, are you sure?’ instead of directly taking users to a site or landing page they didn’t intend to visit in the first place.

Not only is this a better technique for customers (permission marketing 101), but the company also saves money and improves its marketing efforts, thanks to a better understanding of user intent and engagement. Plus, doing something a little creative and different sure helps brand awareness and sentiment!

Watch an overview video here:

TripAdvisor Advertising – CPC Case Study and ROI

A great guest post by Piotr Majdan from Mirai Espana, that takes a deeper look at the performance of TripAdvisor PPC (not to be confused with Business LIstings) activity. Piotr had also published a case study on the ROI of TripAdvisor Business Listings as while back. These conclusions were derived by Mirai after investing €27,000 with 58 hotels:

Your direct rates, your hotel’s website rates, can now appear on Tripadvisor dealing face to face with intermediaries such as booking.com and expedia.com. Should you join this program? What can you expect regarding the required investments and the return you will obtain? Does this return affect your hotel’s position within your city’s ranking? After a comprehensive three-month study, we have got answers.

Tripadvisor’s CPC (Cost per Click) program will generate new bookings in most of the hotels’ websites, mainly for the best rated hotels, but it is not predictable when it comes to cost and can generally be expensive “commission wise”.

In any case, “high” commission is a relative concept and should always be compared with the margin you get through intermediary sites (IDS) or classical tour operators . It still might be worth it for many hotels. Here is how we got to this conclusion.

In May 2010, Mirai pioneered the testing of the Tripadvisor Business Listing. Once again, we are the first ones to explore the new opportunity given by Tripadvisor – their CPC program. The difference between them is that the former is based on a fixed fee and the cost of the latter is variable depending on the traffic.

Other companies on the market offer this service (sometimes with a set-up fee or monthly fixed payment) directly to their clients promising new bookings. Before doing so, we at Mirai, have conducted a test to check the return you can expect by participating in this program. We invested €27,000 in 58 of our clients and analysed the results.

So what is the CPC program and how does it differ from Business Listing?

Business Listing allows you to add a link to your website, as well as the contact information (Blue).

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Future of Display Advertising – Is the Hotel Industry Ready?

Google recently presented their vision for how display advertising is likely to evolve by 2015…these seven predictions are something all marketers worth their salt absolutely MUST be informed and aware about.

To summarize, here are the broad predictions:

50% of ad campaigns will include video ads bought on a cost-per-view basis
50% of ads will be bought using this real-time bidding technology to tailor experiences for different viewers
Smartphones / mobile is going be the number one screen for digital brands to engage users
There will be at least five metrics that advertisers will regard as more important than the “click”
75% of web ads will be “social” in nature i.e. Ads will be shared, discussed, subscribed to and recommended
Rich media formats enable great creativity and interaction – these will grow from 6% of display ad impressions to 50%, especially for brand building campaigns
Digital display advertising is going to grow to a $50 billion industry

Hotel Internet Marketing by 2013 – Are we on Track?

I came across a piece I’d written about 17-18 months ago on the future of hotel internet marketing. The article talked about 5 broad tech trends that I thought would radically alter the way we approached digital / internet marketing for hotels back at the end of 2008. I thought it’d be fun to take a re-look at the article and see how far we’ve actually come in the last year or more and if those predictions still hold water… here goes:

1. Choice is king.
The clear winners of the online distribution race will be suppliers and 3rd parties that provide the most choice to the customer. “Experience building” will become key to the looking and booking process online. This will mean that successful suppliers (hotels) will have to break down elements of their inventory like rooms, dining, sports, spa and supporting services into individual units that can be booked and packaged both internally and externally. The more elements you provide to what I like to call the “Experience Engine”, the better the choice available to customers to personalize and tailor their experiences. This creation of experience units will also allow tourism industry suppliers to collaborate more effectively online, as well as spur the evolution of 3rd party providers who provide superior experience engines, taking destination marketing to a whole new level.

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Hospitality Bloggers and Experts – Thoughts on Hotel Internet Marketing in 2009

Very early on this month, a colleague (thanks Lola!) sent me a copy of Peter Kim’s collaborative compilation of thoughts by bloggers on Social Media. I loved the format and the power that collaboration could harness…bringing together the thoughts, ideas and best practices of those defining the field.

The following document was subsequently born – I reached out to about 18 prominent industry bloggers, writers and industry leaders in online hospitality marketing. 6 came back…here are their thoughts on the main trends the hotel industry is likely to see this year, plus tips on how hoteliers can survive and thrive in the recession. The contributors include:

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis, Deputy Director at the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research (ICTHR), School of Services Management at Bournemouth University.
Todd Lucier, creator of Tourism Keys Internet Marketing for Tourism blog, podcast and learning materials
Patrick Landman, Hotel Revenue Management, Online Distribution and Internet Marketing Guru and the Founder of Xotels
Jan Tissera, President, TravelCLICK International (Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions)
Guillaume Thevenot, French Londoner based at Amadeus and founder+editor of Hotel-Blogs.com
Jitendra Jain (JJ), Online Marketer at Starwood Hotels and founder of The Talent Jungle Network, YoungHotelier.com and HoteleMarketer.com

Please feel free to share this work as required: http://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=11403251&access_key=key-23o5j75xc4uxljxk4vfw&page=1&version=1&viewMode=list

Hotel Online Marketing – Thoughts on 2009 Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 2009: This year may well go down for some as the year that the worst recession since World War II hit the world economy …and threw travel off-balance. Others may remember this year for the exciting challenges posed, opportunities seized and progress made towards a brighter, more profitable and tech-savvy future. Whichever way you chose to remember it, there’s no denying the fact that as travel and hospitality professionals, we’ll all have to break some moulds, get creative, optimize use of resources and collaborate like we’re never done before! This document was inspired by a similar effort in the field of Online Social Media, initiated by Peter Kim, where prominent bloggers and authors collaborated to share their thoughts on the future developments they saw in 2009. My natural reaction was… collaboration should be a natural fit for the hospitality industry right? After all, we’re all about people! Thus this initiative was born…and I set out to seek the knowledge, thoughts and advice of prominent industry leaders and bloggers, on what they saw as important developments and tips in the field of online hospitality marketing this year. Of the 18 or so people contacted, 5-6 were kind enough to respond and share their remarkable thoughts. Common themes that seem to emerge include: It’s time to get back to basics and cover these well There will be an increasing reliance on online technology in the year ahead We’ll have to work together, both offline and online, for the best results Utilization of mobile and on-the-go marketing will increase moving forward There will be a renewed focus on internationalization and destination marketing ROI measurement and analytics will become keystones to online success A better understanding of our customer needs, niches and experiences will be required There will be an increasing use of rich media and online PR in hospitality The Hospitality industry will start experimenting with social media in earnest Creativity and common sense will reign supreme (or so it ought to!) A big Thank You to those who’ve taken the time to share their thoughts, ideas and insights in this document. This just wouldn’t have been possible without you. The purpose of this work is to spark discussion, debate and refinement. So please feel free to share this document as needed and do give credit to the thinkers represented here when their ideas are redistributed or republished. Jitendra Jain / JJ (http://www.HoteleMarketer.com) ALBERT EINSTEIN: It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.

5 Future Internet trends that will change Hotel Internet Marketing

5 Future Developments that will revolutionize Online Hotel Marketing: “For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”, says a famous proverb…and what better fit to apply this than in the world of technology and marketing?

The breakneck speed of tech evolution is inspiring (and often scary) but the two keywords that will set winning developments apart from the ‘also ran’ are ‘love’ and ‘simplicity’. It doesn’t take a degree to understand that people adopt technologies that fuel their imagination & passions…and the rate of adoption is in close sync to the simplicity of its interface and operation. Great technology needs to adapt to the needs of the user and future breakthroughs will bear testament to this.

Continue reading “5 Future Internet trends that will change Hotel Internet Marketing”

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