Airbnb scores a gold medal at Sochi for real time marketing

If real time marketing were a sport, Airbnb would easily win the gold at Sochi this year for their responses to the trending #SochiProblems hashtag on Twitter.  Much like the epic fail of Olympic rings during the opening ceremony, the hashtag depicted hotels with epic fails including missing door handles, double toilets, questionable electrical wiring, and Johnny Quinn using his luge skills to break out of his locked bathroom door.

Once #SochiProblems started trending with examples of Sochi's dismal hospitality standards, Airbnb seized the opportunity to tweet about the stylish (and functional) lodging alternatives available on their site.  Some of these options greatly outshined the Sochi hotels, where the average score of the hotels on Tripadvisor is in the less than desirable range of 3 to 3.5 (out of 5).  To take it one step further, Airbnb even started sending tweets directly to journalists that had whined about their Sochi hotel problems, tempting them with descriptions and house porn photography of Airbnb listings where they could have been resting their heads at night. 

Although it's not really clear whether or not any of the journalists with #SochiProblems ended up swapping in their hotels from hell for an Airbnb listing, the vacation rental company will go home with the gold for offering a creative real time solution for those in need of a place to stay where the door to the room actually closes.  And unlike some of the hotels in Sochi, there won't be any spying going on in the bathrooms.

And if Airbnb gets a gold medal, then Sochi tourism places dead last.  With all the #SochiProblems broadcast all over the media, it's doubtful Sochi will get much of a prolonged tourism boost it's banking on after the Olympics are over.

Because migrating birds also deserve a unique Airbnb home after a long journey

Airbnb has done some pretty rad marketing in recent past.  Remember the short film Hollywood & Vines that was made entirely from six-second Vine clips?  What about the home made Obama O's that two of the founders created to raise money for their fledgling venture?

Well now Airbnb is all grown up with its first integrated advertising campaign called Birdbnb, which uses a metaphor of migrating birds and birdhouses for travelers and our desire to feel at home whenever we're on the road.

Watch this awesome video here.

But these aren't just ordinary birdhouses.  They're 50 unique bird-sized spaces inspired by real life Airbnb listings from all over the world.  Although they're beautifully constructed by professional artists, the real beauty shines when each of the migrating birds finds a home and starts exploring the cozy living quarters . . . even treating themselves to popcorn while perched on the TV couch!

I couldn't imagine a traditional lodging e-commerce site like Expedia creating an advertisement such as this one.  It really highlights the strong value Airbnb places on creating unique travel experiences through its hundreds of thousands of unique spaces around the world.

I think I can safely speak for the birds when I say, "How could you not love this company!?"

Virgin America has the coolest in-flight safety video that you just gotta watch

Back in 2007, I was one of the first passengers on Virgin America's inaugural LAX/SFO flight.  This new airline was hip and cool, and did for the airline industry what W Hotels did for the bland hotel industry.  I mean seriously . . . the airplane cabin had purple and blue lighting!  More than five years later, there's still not one airline that creates such a uniquely cool customer experience (especially in economy class).

Now Virgin America has further underscored its title as the coolest airline in the world with its newest in-flight safety video.  It's quite possibly the most entertaining video of it's kind, but one has to wonder if the actual safety messages get muted from all the belching high notes.  I suppose if it at least gets travelers' attention, it's already more effective than the boring in-flight safety videos that most people tune out.

Recently TheDesignAir website ranked Virgin America second in the world's best economy class airline cabin.  The airline's soothing blue and purple cabin mood lights weren't as impressive as Air New Zealand's "SkyCouch" seating configuration, which shot the Kiwi carrier to first place.

One thing's for sure though, Virgin America's new in-flight safety video is as much about safety as it is about generating some viral marketing buzz for the coolest airline brand in the world.

What TripAdvisor can teach independent hotels about shifting share from OTAs

A big score for independent hotels (and of course TripAdvisor)

There's certainly no shortage of activity coming from TripAdvisor.  The company recently shifted some focus to metasearch, redesigned its site, acquired content-rich Oyster.com, and launched the independent hotels' newest best friend . . . TripConnect.

TripConnect is a new service that empowers indie hotels like never before when it comes to online marketing and driving direct sales and bypassing OTAs.  These smaller properties can now integrate their web booking engine to TripAdvisor's metasearch, and thus display live rates and availabilities for shoppers who perform a dated search.  By combining the hotel's presence on TripAdvisor metasearch with the right room pricing and bidding strategies, the savvy indie hotel operator can take the first series of steps in winning back channel share from OTAs.  And as OTA click through and conversion rates decline for a particular hotel, they just might scale back their own bidding and thus reduce marketing costs for the indie operator in the long term.

But what about Google?  For those indie hotel operators that have AdWords campaigns running already, should they be plugging into TripConnect and shifting marketing spend to TripAdvisor?  In general it's a wise approach to diversify and spend on both Google and TripAdvisor.  After all, TripAdvisor is one hell of a strong brand, but there are areas in the world where their name is virtually unknown.  So answering this question in detail really depends on the hotel product, destination, and its primary source markets.

But one thing is for sure.  Because TripAdvisor's metasearch allows for dated searches and the new TripConnect service plugs directly into indie hotels' booking engines, there is no wasted ad spend on dates that are unavailable because it wouldn't be possible for the shopper to click through in the first place.

Furthermore, TripAdvisor creates a smoother shopping experience (from research to price shopping) which should ultimately lead to a more highly qualified customer.  In the e-commerce world of performance marketing, that usually translates into much better conversions.

TripConnect offers a number of other added benefits, but at the end of the day it all boils down to one thing.  Independent hotels now have the most powerful tool to help them claw back bookings from high cost OTA distribution channels.  The fact that it's more effective than Google AdWords or Hotel Finder is just icing on the cake.

Google.  It's your move now.

Example of TripConnect in action.  Although in this case HotelClub's lower price is undermining the hotel's efforts.

Priceline jumps on the sponsored listings bandwagon and lets hotels advertise on search results

Priceline's new sponsored listings program for hotels looks pretty darn familiar.  Why?  Competitor OTAs like Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity have all featured pretty much the same product on their own search results pages for several years.  Just like display ads, the sponsored listings are also a complementary revenue stream to traditional OTA margins on the materialized bookings.

The sponsored listings are all auction based, pay per click campaigns that shoot hotels all the way up to the highly desired numero uno position in the search results of a particular destination.  In instances when there are pages upon pages of cookie cutter search results, it's easy for hotels buried deep into the dog pile to ascend to the top and gain maximum marketing exposure.  These sponsored hotels will get to sit in the spotlight with more or less free advertising unless someone clicks on their listing.

Since Priceline just launched their sponsored listings program last week, I would advise hotels interested in pay per click advertising to sign up ASAP and target their future lean occupancy dates.  The early adopters will enjoy low cost per click because there will be less competition bidding up the prices in the auction.  But winning isn't everything.  To improve the performance of their campaign, hotels absolutely need to ensure their rates are ultra competitive with the market and their inventory is well stocked to maximize conversion and ultimately the campaign's ROI.



As a consumer you can spot the hotels with sponsored listings because of their faded background color and typically the words "sponsored listing" near the hotel name.  In the example below of Expedia's search results for Bali, the Viceroy Bali is visibly designated as a sponsored listing and commands the #2 ranking after Mantra Nusa Dua (which is part of the Daily Deals merchandizing that trumps even sponsored listings).  Let's face it, getting to #2 in the rankings isn't too shabby when there's a whopping 874 other hotels listed beneath.