Leading hotel booking site in UK launches above-the-line campaign to
communicate new ‘Wake Up Happy’ positioning.Hotels.com, part of the Expedia Inc. group of travel companies, is running an
above-the-line advertising campaign for the first time in the company’s UK
history, to promote its newly positioned UK site.

The campaign, developed
with brand agency Lambie Nairn and booked by MPG, will run across terrestrial
and digital TV channels as well as radio stations and is designed to support
the recently launched re-branding activity.

The 10-second treatments will be broadcast from July 5th on Channel 4,
Channel 5 and key digital channels such as Sky and ITV Digital, followed by
radio stations including Virgin, Smooth, Heart, XFM and Talk Sport from July
6th. The £3.5million campaign will run until the end of September. It will
also highlight a Summer Sale, which runs online until the end of August,
featuring substantial savings across more than 1,500 properties in four
destination categories - UK, Beach, City Breaks and Far and Away.

The Hotels.com site now offers travellers a choice of more than 80,000
properties worldwide, accompanied by high quality pictures, interactive maps,
on-site customer reviews and regular special offers, which mean that
travellers are offered a wide choice of accommodation at all star ratings
with low prices, the most up-to-date information and an honest appraisal of
facilities.

Patrik Oqvist, European marketing director for Hotels.com, who has led the UK
development of the new positioning, says: “Our first venture into offline TV
advertising is intended primarily to raise our profile in our most important
European market and add character to the brand. The creative is deliberately
unlike that of traditional travel advertising and is designed to create
stand-out against the competition. It not only ties in with the new visual
identity of the site but is specifically tailored to appeal to our high
priority UK customers.”

The “Wake up happy” repositioning emphasises Hotels.com’s customer
service-led approach and is intended to move the site from being a
sector-generic URL to more of a consumer brand.  Communications across the
new site emphasise its understanding of - and ability to cater for - modern
travellers and new features, such as customer reviews, interactive mapping
and more detailed room views that have been introduced in the run-up to the
re-brand, with more enhancements to come.
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