W+K’s new spot for Booking.com features legendary ghost hunting destination the Queen Anne Hotel in San Francisco. The Queen Anne, which was featured on an episode of the Travel Channel’s Haunted Hotels, was a boarding school before it was a hotel, and one-time headmistress Mary Lake is said to haunt it.
In the spot above, a woman sleeping in the hotel is awoken by the television turning on by itself. She sees a camera view of something approaching her room, Room 410: the very room Mary Lake is said to haunt. Later the woman sees shots of herself, presumably while Mary’s ghost approaches. We cut out just before this woman wets the bed. At the end we see the tagline “Stay if you dare,” followed by “Over 350,000 accommodations including haunted hotels.” I’m not sure there’s a huge audience who wants to stay at haunted hotels, but I suppose the idea is that Booking.com can accommodate your every whim. Even a weird one like wanting to stay in a haunted hotel. I don’t love it, but it could be the most interesting Booking.com spot since they stole Bob Marshall’s idea of showing someone booking a room during Spain’s Running of the Bulls. Now if they’d only stop the whole “Booking.yeah” thing.
If you’re a paranormal enthusiast and are serious about wanting to stay at a haunted hotel, Booking.com will totally hook you up. They’ve created a Haunted Destination finder on their site. Included are the Queen Anne Hotel, The Stanley Hotel in Colorado (the inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining), the Vinoy Renaissance Hotel in St. Petersburg, Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas, The Historic National Hotel in Jamestown, California, The Gettysburg Hotel, and the 1886 Crescent Hotel (a purportedly haunted Arkansas hotel that houses an old morgue in its basement). It’s worth a quick click through for the histories of these paranormal destinations. Credits after the jump. CREDITS
Client: Booking.com
CMO: Paul Hennessy
Brand Director: Cort Cunningham
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Directors: Zach Watkins, Gen Hoey
Copywriter: Zach Watkins
Head of Production: Erik Verheijen
Agency Producer: Elissa Singstock
Planner: Daisy Andrews
Group Account Director: Jordi Pont
Account Director: Courtney Trull
Account Manager: Alex Allcott
Digital Producer: Matthew Ravenhall
Project Manager: Jackie Barbour
Business Affairs: Justine Young
Media Buy: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Director: Mark Bernath
Editing Company: Wieden + Kennedy
Editor: Julien Maingois
Sound Designer, Mixer: Raja Sehgal
Sound Design: Grand Central Recording Studios
Artist, Title: Raja Sehgal
Postproduction: MPC, Amsterdam
Flame: Lise Prud-Homme
Telecine: George K
Producer: Gerben Molenaar
Illustrator: Akiko Stehrenberger
Agent: Helene Polverelli, H Represents