Tech innovation has ushered in a new golden age of travel, transforming the tourism industry. A recent story in the Guardian called this the era of the DIY traveler, empowered by the ability to plan, manage and book every possible part of a trip. Today’s travelers can book their own flights and hotels online or on their phones; choose to stay in a stranger’s house; swap houses; book trips with myriad rewards points options; and plan their itineraries down to the minute using online reviews or new mobile apps.
This presents a challenge for brands trying to reach these consumers and win their business: with more options at travelers’ fingertips, how do you stand out? Moreover, how do you know your ads are effective and your marketing is netting more business?
The answer may lie with one of advertising’s most traditional mediums: out of home media (OOH). Long popular for travel and tourist brands (think roadside billboards, bus shelters, mass transit ads), OOH is now leveraging sophisticated mobile location analytics to help travel brands—whether local or national—drive their business.
New OOH advertising planning and measurement tools
For years, OOH has been a highly desirable advertising medium for the travel industry. Billboards are highly visible, unskippable and reach potential customers at a crucial time; while they’re commuting to and from work and would prefer to be anywhere but stuck in traffic. Palm trees and paradise surely seem like a far better thing to contemplate.
Now OOH is using mobile location data to understand which customers are exposed to OOH ads and what actions they take afterwards. The powerful combination of OOH, mobile and data analytics allows brands to more accurately plan and measure campaigns, whenever the goal is to drive customers to a point of purchase (Think: clicking “book” on your travel search engine). Just last spring, Clear Channel Outdoor introduced the industry’s first digital audience measurement solution for campaign planning and measurement that taps into mobile location data in exactly this way.
Perhaps even more exciting and relevant for travel brands is that this technology can also be used on the front-end of the sale, determining which customer segments to select for a sales event or promotion. Location data provide rich behavioral insights into the places customers frequent, when they’re not inside a store.
Increase brand awareness
In fact, an online vacation and travel site and a leading European airline recently turned to these sophisticated OOH capabilities to drive business, and the results were impressive.
The online travel and vacation brand used these new audience engagement and measurement capabilities to raise brand awareness and drive customers to its website. The campaign used a combination of OOH placements that over-indexed for the brand’s target demographic (HHI 75K+) in key markets. They then tracked exposure to the OOH campaign via mobile location data from opt-in panelists. Billboard exposure was measured by determining if the customers had driven past the billboard while the ad was live and, from there, exposed and unexposed panelists were surveyed.
The results? Those exposed to the OOH campaign were 11 percent more likely to visit the brand’s website,15 percent more likely to book a vacation on the brand’s website, and 29 percent more likely to talk about the vacation/travel brand with friends and family.
Similarly, a leading European airline found measurable lift from an OOH campaign powered by mobile location data. The airline sought to build awareness of airline routes and competitively priced deals to its select audience in the Boston DMA.
Using the new OOH planning/attribution solutions, they activated OOH locations around Boston South Station to showcase price points and desirable international destinations, reaching consumers during their daily commute. The campaign resulted in a 76 percent increase in ad recall and a 129 percent lift in recall of the campaign message.
These are just two examples of how travel brands are using OOH in new and sophisticated ways to engage consumers and drive sales. For marketers and researchers, these enhanced targeting and measurement capabilities signal the beginning of a new and exciting era fueled by technologies that harness the power of mobile location-based data. Armed with the confidence that OOH and travel brands are now proven as powerful partners, we’re solving these challenges in measurable and meaningful ways.
