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Hotels.ca has launched a television advertising campaign in an effort to increase its brand awareness in Canada.
The campaign consists of two spots that launched in late June and will air for the duration of the summer. In one ad, a partially dressed man books a hotel stay while hiding under a bed with his laptop, discussing how the simplicity of booking through Hotels.ca has made him less stressed by other aspects of his life.
Another man angrily bursts into the room, while a woman in a bed tries to convince him that no one else is there. While the angry man shouts and looks for him, the carefree man under the bed remarks about the continental breakfast offered by one of the establishments listed on Hotels.ca.
The other spot depicts a shirtless, hairy man who appreciates the simple Hotels.ca search and booking process enough to ignore the back-waxing procedure he is enduring. The man remains fixated on the website even as a fire breaks out on his freshly-waxed back.
The creative was developed by Toronto’s Grip Limited, which picked the Hotels.ca account earlier this year.
According to David Chiavegato, partner, creative at Grip, the win was not the result of a review and owed largely to Grip’s prior experience producing interactive work for Hotels.ca’s sister site Expedia.ca.
Chiavegato said that while Hotels.com is well-established in the U.S., its Canadian counterpart is making its first concerted play for mass attention in Canada with this campaign. The result, he said, was a pool of spots that hinge on the insight that hotel booking can be stressful.
“The idea is that if you’re able to get that out of the way and find your hotel quickly and at the best price, you become less stressed about other things that are going on in your life,” said Chiavegato. “We were able to communicate the information, but also have something that’s perhaps a bit irreverent and fun and memorable.”
Chiavegato said Grip has developed a third spot for the campaign, which may be included in Hotels.ca’s fall campaign. The media buy was handled by MediaCom.
