Key luxury travel advertising trends

By Tom O’Regan

In online advertising, luxury travel is a game with its own rules. Reaching affluent travelers who are in a buying frame of mind can be tricky – travel is always a high-ticket item.

Consideration cycles in travel are long and competition is fierce. And more than most verticals, luxury travel advertisers have to tell a story and convey value with rich images, displaying a unique experience across very limited digital real estate.

We work with many luxury travel brands, and our research revealed a great deal about their needs and plans for the current year.

I spoke with our friends at Morpheus Media, a full-service agency, to see it plans to support those needs in the months ahead. Joining me for a conversation on the topic were Tresten Tarantino and Simon Gibson, both associate directors for client and media strategies, and Ben Beyda, associate director for mobile strategies.

Here is what we discussed:

Tom O’Regan: Our study revealed that video is a top priority for luxury travel brands in 2013. How are your clients using video today?
Tresten Tarantino: The majority of our clients are using video as a branding experience to help users discover the brand, telling a story to enhance the knowledge of their target consumer.

Do you seem them more frequently integrating video into their rich media ads or leveraging it for sponsored pre-roll?
Mr. Tarantino: There seems to be a good split of brands that integrate video within rich media assets and those who keep it simple with sponsored pre-roll. This depends on the brands initiatives, budgets and willingness to be a contender in the video marketplace.

How are luxury travel brands measuring success with regard to online video?
Mr. Tarantino: Most of our brands measure success based on click-through rate.

Simon Gibson: I certainly agree with the impact of video with brand awareness and the experiential factor.

One thing we’ve seen be quite impactful is specifically using video within rich media placements.

Across the board we see that custom integrations or engaging ads promote higher response rates, more times than not, but leveraging video within units, such as high impact placements like push downs tend to really make a splash against the publisher’s content as well as any other advertisers units that are seen within a user’s Web experience.

CTR helps us gauge initial response, but we also look to additional analytics data to interpret how deep a user’s brand experience was.

Once they get to the site, do they register for more information, make a purchase, or navigate towards additional content?

Post-click activity data really helps legitimize running this kind of media, especially when the cost of such units can be on the higher end.

Mobile is right behind video for a top priority of luxury travel brands. How are your clients using mobile? Specifically, what are they doing to take advantage of the big canvas that tablets offer them?
Ben Beyda: Mobile opportunities are usually add-ons to standard display campaigns and often paid search as well.

We're recommending clients allocate incremental budget in 2013 for more mobile-focused initiatives.

In our experience, mobile campaigns are most effective when planned as such from the start.

Repurposed desktop campaigns usually do not perform well on mobile devices.

Tablets' large canvases allow brands to showcase interactive rich media ad units.

Rich media ads come to life on tablets in a different way than they would on desktops. We encourage brands to invest in highly engaging creative for tablets and smartphones.

Geo-targeting is huge priority. Are luxury travel brands more likely to geo-target or focus on national campaigns?
Mr. Tarantino: Again depending upon their initiatives, for example, Louis Vuitton tends to have several store openings in a year, therefore they naturally focus on marketing in those local regions to drive people in store.

Many of our luxury brands have a mix between local and national reach campaigns.

Everyone wants content integration. How are your clients leveraging content? Are they creating their own content or aligning with other premium content?
Mr. Tarantino: Most of our luxury brands in the past have tested the waters by aligning with premium content.

A few such as Dior and Fendi in 2010 took the leap and partnered with sites to create larger scale programs around custom brand content.

What is the ultimate goal of your clients? To drive a user to a Web site and book, or to drive awareness for the brand?
Mr. Tresten: The majority of the time our clients’ goals are to drive consumers to their branded Web site and heighten awareness for the brand.

Mr. Simon: As I mentioned above, we find that trying to utilize video as a direct response vehicle is a little short-sighted.

We need to recognize that the brand experience may not spur an immediate reaction, rather, help make an emotional connection to the consumer, and establish the advertising brand as a consideration point in the long-term psyche of the consumer.

This also means that the presentation of the video creative has to provide the user with something innately “that brand” and stand out.

You need to provide something to the user so they come back, or volunteer to go further on that journey with you.

We tend to look at interest performance elements when engaging in campaigns that push creative like this, such as looking at search engine marketing interest in the search landscape.

Looking at the increase in branded search queries around launches could show a spur in user interest. Depending on the content of your video creative, this could be something to look at as well.

Are your travel clients' digital campaigns always in conjunction with traditional media? Do they feed off each other, or do their digital campaigns have their own personality?
Mr. Tresten: Some brands capitalize on their traditional campaigns with a partnership in print although not as much as we would like.

There is, however, a growing number of brands that understand the benefits of digital and utilize a well-rounded approach to their marketing strategy including digital.

Please click here for a research infographic on luxury travel advertising trends

Tom O’Regan is president and chief revenue officer of Martini Media, New York. Reach him at tom.o’regan@martini-corp.com.