Travel is tough. It’s stressful and disruptive, even if you’re going on a long-awaited vacation. Realizing this, some travel agencies, airlines, and hotels are starting to acknowledge this fact in their advertisements, and it might be paying off.
It’s hard to forget those TV ads for HomeAway, a vacation house rental website, that feature obnoxious partiers at a hotel and half-dressed, scruffy hosts at what is clearly meant to be an Airbnb, for example.
Westin Hotels has been running a series of print ads discussing the stresses of travel and how their beds are so comfortable and such a relief after it. One reads, “Take back what Seat 34E took from you.”
Then there’s the latest Hilton Hotels & Resorts ad that is aimed at people who spend a great deal of time price shopping for hotel rooms on travel websites. “Stop clicking around,” we’re told, because the lowest room prices can always be found on the hotel chain’s website. There is, of course, an ulterior motive to Hilton’s advertising campaign: the company has to pay commissions on rooms booked through third-party sites, but not on rooms booked through its own website.
Traditionally, companies in the travel industry have focused on how relaxing their hotel is or how comfortable their airline seats are, and while this isn’t going away, more and more are advertising by acknowledging some of the downsides as well. By acknowledging the fact that flight and accommodation booking can be a hassle, these companies seem to be “keeping it real,” so to speak.
“It can actually be a strategy to disarm consumers,” Derek Rucker, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, told The New York Times. “When you represent some of the potential negatives of a product or service, that actually makes me feel as if I’m better informed.”
Building on that disarming honesty can allow an advertising message to rise above the noise and grab people’s attention. But it has to be used with a light touch, Rucker said, and it has to include positive messages as well.
“If you give me something too negative, that can completely backfire,” he said. “If your tone is too aggressive, too antagonistic, consumers may revolt.”
Travel is ultimately an amazing experience, but plenty of companies are making bank on advertisements that show how disruptive and painful getting to your destination can be.