• by Tanya Gazdik , February 1, 2011

HomeAway.com's upcoming Super Bowl commercial and marketing campaign includes a "test baby," which accidentally launches in the air and smashes against a glass wall in a tiny hotel room.

The campaign, developed by Austin, Texas-based ad agency Vendor Inc., kicks off Super Bowl Sunday with the debut of new 30-second spot that challenges travelers to ask themselves: "Why hotel when you can HomeAway?" It airs during the third quarter of the Fox broadcast of Super Bowl XLV on Feb. 6, as reported in Marketing Daily on Nov. 16.

This year's creative takes a different tack than the company's 2010 Super Bowl spot, "Hotel Hell Vacation," which reunited Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo in their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold from the 1980s comedy "National Lampoon's Vacation."

The 2011 spot stars the fictional "Minister of Detourism" in a top-secret government testing facility where he highlights the pitfalls of cramped hotel rooms and showcases the benefits of vacation rentals: Privacy, space and freedom. A family is seen in a "hotel room simulator," where they suffer from "limited space syndrome" and struggle to get comfortable in the cramped quarters. Then, in a chain reaction, a "test baby" is accidentally launched into the air and ultimately crashes against the glass of the hotel room simulator before sliding slowly to the floor.

Tim Calkins, marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, tells Marketing Daily that HomeAway is taking "quite a risk" with the over-the-top gratuitous violence involving a baby. "There is a good chance people will remember the smushed baby and miss the real point of the commercial," he says. "The baby could also offend some viewers, or at least leave them with a negative feeling about the brand."

This potential issue concerns amplification, one element of the framework Kellogg uses to evaluate spots. "People might remember, or amplify, the baby instead of the benefits of HomeAway," Calkins says.

However, HomeAway says it used the test baby scene to create a "Super Bowl-worthy" moment that breaks through the clutter of so many ads, says Brian Sharples, chief executive officer of HomeAway, in a release.

Adam Hanft, founder and CEO of the brand strategy firm, Hanft Projects, disagrees. "This spot is even more of a disaster than the worst imaginable hotel stay," Hanft tells Marketing Daily. "This is Superbowl advertising porn at its worst."

The metaphor of the spot, that vacations need to be rescued by this "Detourism" swat team, is "tired, trite and overly complex," Hanft says. "If HomeAway wants to create a new market for vacation rentals, they need to create trust and credibility."

A 60-second customizable version of the commercial allows consumers to star in the spot by putting their faces onto a test baby and selecting one of three scenes: "Smush" (in which the test baby's face smushes against the glass), "smash" (in which the baby is propelled through the room's glass wall), or "catch" (in which the baby is launched into the air and caught by the Minister of Detourism). The ad can be shared via email, Facebook and Twitter.

HomeAway vacation rental property owners and managers may also feature their homes in the customizable ad, during a scene that becomes a personalized virtual home tour and marketing tool.

The campaign's website houses additional videos from the "Ministry of Detourism," including a spoof on the history of hotels; a video showing the ministry's "hotel keycard test" in which a man's arm falls off after several attempts to open his room with a deactivated keycard; and a video of the ministry's "hotel guest sleeping test" in which a family struggles to catch some sleep when staying next door to a heavy metal band.

Online ads will appear on general interest and travel-focused Web sites. Social media will be used to spread the word about the campaign and drive visitors to HomeAway.com to create and share customized videos. The company's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts will also be updated regularly with new campaign content.