Skift Take
For online travel agencies and hotel chains, the new cryptic brand messaging in Google Hotel Ads is a quest for identity and differentiation. Little things -- and a handful of characters -- will mean an awful lot. Want to know the difference between Booking.com and sister company Priceline.com? It's all there in the short bursts of brand blurbs.
The war for travelers' hearts, minds and hotel bookings is taking place on Google through brand messaging, usually in short bursts of 25 to 50 characters.
If you've ever wondered how a travel brand, be it an online travel agency or hotel, really views itself or how sister brands, such as Expedia.com and Hotels.com, on the one hand, or Booking.com and Priceline.com, on the other, position themselves differently, then these mini-brand messages speak volumes.
Travel brands for years have been complaining that they don't want to compete on price alone, particularly on travel-comparison sites such as Kayak or Trivago, in a race to the proverbial bottom.
Several such sites, including Kayak, now enable such brand messaging and in October, Google began a beta to enable online travel agencies and hotels to display blurbs below their company names and logos in Hotel Ads on mobile, desktop or both.
Skift took a look at the new brand messaging, which Google dubs "callouts," in Google Hotel Ads for Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda.com, Expedia.com, Orbitz, Hotels.com, Wotif.com, Marriot.com, Hilton.com, and AccorHotels.com, and we discuss what these cryptic blurbs mean for the brands.
Booking.com
On mobile and desktop within Google Hotel Ads for some hotels, Booking.com touts itself like this: "Read Real Guest Reviews. Get Instant Confirmation." On mobile it appears on two lines; on desktop Booking.com shows the message in Google on a single line.
Booking.com is all about "Instant Confirmation" as a point of differentiation and it rises to the level of being a principle across all of its lodging products, including hotels and especially vacation rentals. That's because rivals such as HomeAway and TripAdvisor often require consumers to make an inquiry to request to book a vacation home with the wait for a confirmation sometimes taking 24 hours or more. If the owner decides to accept the guest or replies at all.
"Real Guest Reviews," which only come from consumers who booked a stay on Booking.com, are also a point of pride to the folks at Booking.com as a way to distinguish itself from review leader TripAdvisor, which has no such re
