• by Tameka Kee , March 12, 2008

Travel advertisers, including major brands like Hyatt, Avis and Priceline, are increasingly turning to Google for more than just search ads. They're leveraging the giant's online video, social media and offline products--including Google Audio and TV Ads--not only for branding, but also message testing.

Priceline, for example, has been experimenting with Google Audio and TV ads. "We have a very split mix in terms of ad spend," said Brett Keller, CMO of Priceline.com. "Obviously we do a lot of offline with TV, and historically we've done a lot of radio. And we've historically used search as well, but we've tried to stay on top of new products that Google has moved into."

Keller said that in addition to transplanting their TV spots starring William Shatner as the "Negotiator" to Gadget Ads and YouTube, Priceline had been testing Google TV Ads, which are distributed via EchoStar Communications' set-top boxes nationwide. "The TV ads have provided us with new methods of creative learning. We can run different forms of creative through the platform and look at dropoff rates in viewerships by spot, network or program," Keller said. "We can also identify which pieces of creative work best and use that info for our traditional media methodology."

Keller added that Priceline used the data to compare ad performance against industry norms, determine network engagement stats and experiment with ads on networks that it normally wouldn't have. "It helps us dig down into the long tail of TV," Keller said. "We can target smaller networks that we wouldn't have bought before because there was no viewer data." And while Google TV ads aren't snagging a huge chunk of the travel company's budget, Keller said Priceline has already enjoyed the "interesting benefits" of the platform.

Meanwhile, Hyatt Place, the branch of Hyatt hotels geared toward tech-savvy business travelers, turned to Google while in the midst of rebranding to help develop a personalized home page for guests. Using the giant's widget-creation platform, dubbed the Google Gadgets API, Hyatt Place created a splash page that guests could customize when they first logged on to the hotel's network. The page contained widgets with info on things like local attractions, weather and flight status, and guests were able to add and delete the modules as they saw fit.

Although marketers can build their own Gadgets, Hyatt Place worked with an account team to bring the Google Gadget API to scale. "It was a matter of the account team knowing their business," said Cindy Goodrich, Google's industry marketing manager, travel. "We knew that they were rebranding and focusing on tech-savvy consumers, and we knew that there were a lot of people that were going through a generic start page to access the hotel's network _ so this seemed like a great way to help them improve that experience."

With Tourism New Zealand (an official tourism organization of the island nation) the asset was YouTube, and the company used it to help create awareness of its "100% Pure New Zealand" campaign.

In mid-September 2007, Tourism New Zealand launched a branded YouTube channel, complete with a custom skin, and it invited users to share and upload their own New Zealand clips. The initial video has amassed more than 810,000 views and more than 1,200 comments, and has been favorited about 1,200 times _ and that's buzz quantified, according to Rob Torres, Google's national industry director, travel.

"They wanted to build a buzz about New Zealand because they felt like people didn't know what the country had to offer," Torres said. "Of course, the end goal was to get more people to come to New Zealand, but this campaign was more about exposing the brand of New Zealand to a wide audience."

Other advertisers have used videos within Google Maps to reach users while they're searching for travel information on a specific locale. But the possibilities for travel and online video are endless, according to John Peebles, vice president of online marketing for Avis Budget Group. Peebles said the auto rental company plans to create a how-to channel on YouTube with videos aimed at giving consumers info on renting hybrids. "We've found that some people are nervous about driving them, so we're thinking of using video to show them up close what they would do. Kind of like a 'Don't be afraid of a Toyota Prius' thing," Peebles said.