Priceline Group Revamps TV Strategy With Whopping Spending Hikes

When the Priceline Group, including Booking.com, Priceline.com and Kayak, said it would rethink its digital advertising strategy and tilt more toward TV campaigns to increase the profile of its brands and establish closer ties with customers, the company meant it. In the past four months — October 2017 through January 2018 — the Priceline Group's U.S. national TV advertising jumped to $35.4 million, from $4.3 million in the same period a year earlier, according to an iSpot.tv estimate. [See chart below.] The company's percentage increases during this seasonally slow period are off the charts. Representatives did not immediately respond to questions about their spending spree. For example, the Group's largest brand, Booking.com, went from spending next to nothing in U.S. national TV advertising ($130,793) from October 2016 through the end of January 2017 to shelling out $24.3 million in the past four months, iSpot.tv found.