Articles tagged “advertising”

A lot of public companies are actively wondering how they will counter an onslaught if they become a target of the new administration in Washington. It's therefore a fairly gutsy act when companies ranging from Expedia to Celebrity Cruises stick their proverbial necks out.

Google is aggressively placing itself more prominently than ever between the consumer and the airline in the quest for bookings. What does it mean? Airlines are getting more qualified leads but are losing control and getting even more beholden to Google.

Montreal's use of targeted advertising on Facebook, however, and the use of William Shatner is a smart example of how to go after key markets.

It is the beginning of year two for HomeAway within the Expedia portfolio, but rival Airbnb is also getting aggressive in its digital marketing of vacation rentals and Booking.com is no slouch, either. Perhaps to the chagrin of hotels, the vacation rental category is getting a ton of more exposure.

In mid-2015 Kayak opted to go dark on U.S. TV and to put more investment into broadcast advertising in Europe. Companies have to make such hard choices sometimes. Kayak's Hafner claims, however, "the sky didn't fall" in the U.S., although one could surmise that Google Flights is "knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door."

Trivago is saturating certain markets with TV advertising. Google Trends data suggest this may not be as effective as the company wants investors to surmise.

Google may not be on the road toward becoming an online travel agency, but the search engine is inserting itself more aggressively in the travel research and hotel-shopping process.

If publicly traded companies such as Google are bound by fiduciary duties to shareholders, then Google, which already has one of the largest travel businesses in the world, larger than the Priceline Group, TripAdvisor and Ctrip combined, would be foolhardy to shoot its advertising business in the foot to become an online travel agency.

Google is getting disrupted on a number of fronts and the emergence of Facebook as a viable advertising alternative -- or supplement, actually -- for Expedia and other big travel advertisers is part of it.

Facebook wants to become a stronger player for driving trip inspiration and travel bookings, particularly direct bookings.