Seat-back ads have finally arrived in the US, with low cost carrier AirTran being the first to embrace what is already beloved onboard European LCCs like Ryanair and EasyJet.
Soon, passengers on all AirTran flights will be confronted for the entire trip by a 2.5" by 9" poster, sitting a few feet from their eyes, trying to worm its way into their eyeballs. It will be present on all 138 jets, and the first advertiser is an odd one: Mother Nature Network, a "one-stop resource and an everyman's eco-guide" for environmental news, travel, lifestyle, etc. MNN will use the ads to publicize a 7-night cruise giveaway as well—how eco-friendly of them. Hmm... ]]>
Whoever's in charge of doing tourism ads for the Florida Keys and Key West has something of a mischievous streak. Either that of they're smart enough to know that hijacking well-known brands is much easier than creating new ones. They've launched a commercial reminding potential tourists that real-life experiences like canoeing or snorkeling trump hours and hours of playing Brick Breaker. That's kind of blasphemous, but in fairness, it's probably also kind of true.
The ad isn't entirely accurate— we suspect there actually are apps where you can overpay for a three-star hotel before marching your family around derelict tourist traps until everyone's equally miserable—but it's still a clever little spot. It could have been slightly improved by dropping that hackneyed "real experiences" line at the end. And we have to wonder whether or not there's a cease and desist letter from Apple in the mail for them. Still: clever little ad.
Check it out, after the jump.]]>
You'd think the recession would have catapulted price comparison engine Kayak.com into universal traveler awareness. The company's internal figures, though, tell a different story. Less than 1/3 of the more than 100 million Americans who use travel booking sites know about Kayak. Even less are able to differentiate Kayak from similar-on-first-look but significantly different competitors like Expedia. In a move that's bound to raise eyebrows in the travel industry and among travel advertisers, the company is shifting their resources into a massive offline ad campaign.
The new ad blitz was launched over the weekend and is set to blanket primetime cable through 2010. CNN, ESPN, and MSNBC have all been selected as venues, presumably on numbers promising that most coveted of travel industry demographics: 25-44 year olds with disposable income. Forbes.com has a full writeup on the campaign, including a description of one of the "witty 30 second spots":]]>
Normally when you see negative travel advertising about a city or state, it's one locale trying to play itself up as an alternative to another and occasionally you run into a campaign that's more or less being done to punish a place. An example of this is food companies' punitive response to New York's ongoing war against smoking/alcohol/transfats/fun, but it's very unusual to have a campaign that's just pure "don't go to this place" spite. What's been happening in Honduras, where the exiled Tourism Minister is screening negative ads about his own country, is indeed very unusual.
The politics down in Honduras are obviously a mess. Manuel Zelaya was ousted from the presidency with various degrees of legitimacy and justification, the answer to that varying with where you fall on the political spectrum. The US government, along with Honduras' neighbors, insist it was a coup. The Honduran Supreme Court, legislature, and army mostly beg to disagree. None of that matters for our purposes. Instead we enter the story where Ricardo Martinez, Zelaya's former Tourism minister, is invited to act as the country's legitimate representative at the Central American Travel Market.
He was, all things considered, not the best imaginable spokesman for the Honduran tourism industry...]]>
Most people have at least a passing knowledge of the famous ESPN SportsCenter ads, where sports mascots work as employees in the SportsCenter studio. Vegas.com is trying to build on that familiarity with a new Las Vegas campaign, except they're replacing franchise mascots with casino characters and the SportsCenter studio with... um...the Vegas.com studio? Maybe? The entire campaign could actually stand to be a little bit more punchy. Also a little bit more funny.
The clips are being posted over at Vegas.com/exposed. After the jump we've put one of the commercials, a spot that plays on the Treasure Island pirates. When we originally found this thing on AdFreak they included it with a clip starring Carrot Top. We obviously like you guys too much to expose you to that.]]>
The UK's KK Outlet ad agency was tasked with selling a generously described no frills hostel in Amsterdam.
The hostel in question, as you undoubtedly figured out from the ads, is Amsterdam's Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. Lest you think they're joking about the lack of amenities, or that their self-deprecation is a passing thing, the establishment website hawks a book titled The Worst Hotel in the World: The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel Amsterdam. They're proud all of it, from the nonexistent bedding to the subpar customer service. It's like they're the Ryanair of hostels.
Via Advertising Is Good For You, Pure genius:]]>
The tourism board of Northern Wisconson's Forest County Chamber of Commerce has reached back to old media to promote their new social media campaign, erecting a billboard on Highway 32 to highlight their Facebook fan page. The idea is to promote the Facebook page as a portal into the rest of the county's tourism promotions, with pictures, links to more specific sites, and event information. Cute:
Sadly, no one talks about billboards any longer. But they're still out there and they still work. So why are we talking about the lowly billboard today? Social media, of course... it's big news when a billboard is used to promote a Facebook page... Located just south of Lakewood on HWY 32, travelers from Milwaukee and Chicago heading north will see the board which carries an invitation from the Crandon Chamber to "Become a friend of Crandon" on Facebook.
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