Skyscanner pins hopes on video and social to become number one in increasingly competitive market
Skyscanner is looking to online video and social as the way to build awareness and ultimately achieve its objective of becoming the leading brand in the category.
The company has launched a video featuring profiles of people such as airport check-in staff and hotel concierges who assist others during their Christmas travels as part of its first global Christmas campaign, which looks to thank the unsung “Christmas heroes” of the festive season. The company selected individuals who repeatedly sacrifice their holidays and surprised them with gifts of free vacations.
The campaign is based on research by One Pall, which revealed that 53% of Brits plan to travel this Christmas, and that of the 49% who receive help from one of these “heroes” during the festive period only one in five say thank you.
Sam Poullain, social media manager for Skyscanner, told Marketing Week, “We wanted to thank the people that help us get home for Christmas, whether it’s at the airport, helping you hire a car or checking you into a hotel.”
He says social will be an important channel for the brand moving forward to allow them to engage with users and provide useful content.
The company is also planning to produce more video, both in-house and working with global film companies and travel bloggers.
“We’re looking to video to tell the stories we want to tell,” Poullain says, claiming this could include tutorials on how to use the site.
Online video is considerably cheaper than the £3m TV campaign the company launched earlier this year, a first for Skyscanner, which also lived through outdoor and digital.
UK-specific data from ComScore shows that in October of this year, Skyscanner only saw 1.8 million visitors to its desktop site compared to the 7 million and 4.9 million of fellow travel sites TripAdvisor Priceline, with 6.6 million visitors in all of Europe for the month compared to 33.7 million for Priceline and 30.1 million for TripAdvisor.
Skyscanner, however, claims to have 60 million visitors visitors globally to its mobile and desktop sites each month and more 30 million unique monthly visitors.
The market is becoming increasingly competitive as sites like Ryanair also look to introduce price comparison tools similar to the likes of Skyscanner.
Skyscanner, which also hired three senior marketing roles earlier in the year, hopes the user-generated campaign will create standout for the service it provides and help it gain share of the category.
The campaign video is being promoted through YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, with the company inviting users to tell the story of their own “Christmas hero” by sharing a photo using the #ChristmasHeroes hash tag for a chance to win a trip.