My Friend, John Ellis, wrote a post about the new HomeAway Superbowl commercial today and I got a chance to check out the marketing campaign and wanted to share my thoughts.
First, I think it’s clever….but I’m not sure its the right message.
It feels somewhat like a political smear campaign, wherein everyone says how awful the other guy is, but the message about how great YOU are, as a candidate, is lost in the negativity. I didn’t really get a sense of why I should choose a vacation rental over a hotel stay. I really only walked away with the feeling that I should hate all hotels with a fiery burning passion.
And John is right, the VW Superbowl ad is by far the best one out there!!
We are falling for the controversial homeaway bait…. see how effective it is!
Wes
Or are we just making sure we get some bang from their Superbowl buck & bait?
My numbers support more traffic, but not bookings. Take a look at my vacation rental blog post on the issue at: http://vacation-rentals-today.blogspot.com (but no making fun that it needs to move to my domain guys). It’s an n=1, but I’ll get to the other rentals soon.
Uh wrong link. It is: http://bettervacationrentals.blogspot.com/2011/02/homeaway-is-it-all-hype.html#links
I agree, the VW ad is absolutely fantastic and far more exciting than the ones we get over here in the UK! Simple, but very effective.
Mark
It may be controversial, but they sure have spent enough money on getting the message out there. With such a large spend required to advertised at the Superbowl, it should provide enough of a reaction to make it very worthwhile?
They definitely smeared the baby’s face. Do you think that people knew it was a commercial for vacation rentals? I kind of doubt it….
I read this morning that Homeaway was the #2 least effective brand of all those that advertised during the superbowl:
http://www.mullen.com/2011/02/chrysler-wins-brandbowl2011-best-advertiser-on-the-super-bowl-telecast-according-to-twitter-users/
@Jill – I dont think anyone really “understood” that it was for vacation rentals – I think you would need to watch it about 4 times to “get it.”
@Melinda – I think its a lot of hype to convince owners they spend a lot on advertising and that they should all list w/ them…those of us in the “bizness” so to speak, understand that actually converting a shopper from a hotel stay to a vacation rental stay is MUCH tougher and much more complicated than just telling them they should “hate hotels.”
yup that’s right the VW Superbowl is by far the best one..