David Fontana

How do you increase sales when you seem exactly like the other products in your brand portfolio?

Understanding the various Expedia, Inc. brand personalities highlighted the various brand commonalities and differences. While Online Travel Agencies (OTA’s) operate in the same space, they are viewed very differently as brands. Recognizing the differences provided channels and tactics specific for Expedia.com to beat “emotional likeness”

Expedia is viewed as a pure transaction partner, unlike the character driven brands in the portfolio (Travelocity, Hotels). This insight served as a springboard to focus the media in data-driven planning and adjust investment strategy. Weekly responses to channel attribution provided insights to push beyond efficiency and ultimately drive effectiveness.

Using Learnings to Change Media Touchpoint Investments
Learnings from successes & failures helped drive tactics to the most contextually relevant spaces:

  • Removed premium placements and sponsorships that had been a fixture in prior years. From a brand profile standpoint, these tactics represented content better suited to the character driven brands in the portfolio
  • Focused on performance numbers, rather than 3rd party data. Working with Expedia analytics, focused on maximizing the effectiveness of Linear TV to get people into the funnel to transact 
  • Improve the mix, complementing traditional tactics with other video channels - Addressable, Programmatic TV, FEP and OTT – as long as partners could provide methodologies compatible with Expedia’s analytics approach
  • Introduced the brand to DRTV as a platform to test new networks and as a way to invest within high performing networks at a lower cost. Once proven a success in the US, worked with Expedia analytics to create a DR model for other global markets
  • Measured the effectiveness of Offline channels on mobile revenue and how that differed from desktop revenue


Real Results
Expedia has shown increases in bookings and efficient profit. Ongoing measurement of results led to improvements in scheduling which created a consistency of growth, provided reliable ongoing return and removed volatility in revenue.  Additionally, these tactics have helped map out a path for success for other brands in the portfolio

 

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Marketing & Media professional