Travelers Want Ads to Focus on Discounts, Pre-Pandemic Normalcy

The most effective travel advertisements during the pandemic offer glimpses of hope to homebound travelers.

Kantar, one of the world's leading data, insights and consulting companies, analyzed several different commercials from top travel companies such as Viking River Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Southwest Airlines and more to see how their messaging impacted their performance.

Overall, the most productive advertising campaigns focused on hopeful and forward-looking messaging.

These ads showed people traveling as they had before the pandemic, without masks and in large groups. They offered solutions to today's problems, instead of dwelling on how terrible the current situation is. Royal Caribbean's campaigns took both of these angles and were highly successful.

Not only were these primary factors in the success of ad campaigns, but deep discounts were a huge factor, too. Ads that focused on discounted travel, like the ads from Bermuda, Royal Caribbean and Turks & Caicos created more interest than ads that featured a luxurious cruise. A discount in an ad, then, is one of the most important driving factors in converting viewers into customers.

Selling travel through advertisements is going to have to be positive, forward-focused and feature discounts as incentives for people to book now for the future, instead of later when the situation is clearer.

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