After two long years of holiday deprivation, the summer break and the opening of Australia’s borders promised a tantalising taste of travel once more. But, of course, Omicron had other ideas.
It’s been a one-two punch for the travel industry that was just beginning to find its feet again: travellers opting to stay home to dodge the newest variant and staff forced to isolate kneecapping travel, tourism and hospitality providers alike.
Travel marketers could be forgiven for pressing pause on their advertising to ride out the latest wave. But really, there has never been a better time for them to be talking to consumers.
Ironically, travel brands are usually dealing with a very different kind of wave at this time of year as the sector comes off the back of the summer holiday peak and new offers are launched into the market.
Instead, this year, the Aussie summer has only made a small dent in pent up demand and the desire to travel is going to continue to build. Between the people like me who missed out on the adventures they had planned over Christmas to those returning to working from home once again, there’s one thing on all our minds: a real holiday.
But where to? With many travel brands (understandably) reigning back ad spend during the pandemic, there’s a dearth of wanderlust in the air. Roy Morgan research tells us that consumer awareness of travel brands has taken a dive with a whopping 64 per cent of consumers unsure where their next short break will be. Freeing the same reigns could be a key contributor to solving this issue.
Nielsen data shows $419 million worth of travel advertising was cut last year and remains low. This means brands that invest in advertising right now will reap rewards gaining more share of voice than ever before. And reestablishing share of voice is the first step to reestablishing a conversation with a customer.
Still, it’s a delicate dance. No brand wants to promote a deal or offer travellers can’t take up and yet, these same brands want to remain top of mind as conditions change. That’s why smart operators are focusing on brand building at scale rather than shorter-term activation.
Pre-pandemic, the godfathers of advertising effectiveness Les Binet and Peter Field recommended categories with non-perishable goods such as travel employ a 75:25 mix in favour of brand campaigns. The reason for this is long term investment in brand supercharges short-term activation campaigns.
And the best way to build your brand is to appeal to people’s emotions. Heavy research sectors like travel respond most effectively to emotional advertising. A chapter of The Benchmark Series found ads that trigger a high emotional response had a 2.4 times greater sales impact than those that didn’t.
When it comes to choosing the best media channels to support emotive creative, you want channels with high-velocity reach and a proven ability to build brands.
That’s why TV can help get travel, tourism and hospitality get moving again. Total TV engages 75 per cent of Australians every week and via that high-velocity reach, you can get to lots of people quickly.
In addition to reach, it’s critical to choose channels that deliver the best return on investment for your spend. In 2021, the Payback Series research found for every dollar invested in TV campaigns that ran for more than three months, brands got $18.30 back, on average. That’s $4.20 more than the next best channel. TV is also powerful in the short term with campaigns under three months delivering $4.30 for every dollar invested.
Given travel’s path to purchase, the temptation may be to rely on search alone, but TV is a workhorse that also drives website traffic. The Payback research found TV to be the number one driver of search contributing 18 per cent towards sales impact, fast-tracking your brand’s fame.
All marketers have found themselves in a challenging position in the last two years but rest assured, those that continued to support their brands have seen untold rewards. As we grapple with the latest twist in this crazy pandemic, it’s travel’s turn to stay strong.
Kim Portrate is the CEO of ThinkTV and the former CMO of Helloworld travel.
For more tips and tricks on navigating this challenging period, check out ThinkTV’s handy guide, Get set for travel in 2022 here.