HomeAway, an online vacation rental marketplace, is launching its first national integrated marketing campaign on Super Bowl Sunday not only by reprising the Griswolds from the 1980s movie "National Lampoon's Vacation" but also by incorporating an extended online campaign.
This online piece includes a word-of-marketing style road trip - similar to but less elaborate than Coke's Happiness campaign - in which an exact replica of the Family Truckster hits the road in late Spring to visit vacation destinations to spread the word about its portfolio of vacation rentals.
Online Outreach
Besides the movie trailer style commercial featuring actors Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo, there is a microsite and Facebook and Twitter accounts from Chris Griswold.
The campaign, developed and produced in conjunction with Publicis in the West, includes additional airings of the Super Bowl spot on Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, HGTV, TBS, USA Network, and Food Network. A digital advertising campaign will appear on About.com, Conde Nast Traveler's concierge.com, iExplore, Yahoo!, and Google.
The Hotel Hell Vacation-branded microsite will have such video content as the mock movie trailer commercial, the Hotel Hell Vacation film, scenes from the original "National Lampoon's Vacation and a user-generated content contest with $40,000 in prizes that begins on Feb. 7.
Visitors can share their stories of hotel horrors by text, photo or video entry. There are four categories, including "Outrageous Hotel Bills," "Cramped Hotel Quarters," "Wish I Had a Kitchen," and "Other Hotel Woes." The public will be invited to vote for the best stories.
An interactive 'Griswolds Getaway' online game is also part of the mix. The game invites players to try their hand at stacking luggage on top of the Griswold's Wagon Queen Family Truckster. As luggage falls from the sky, players have to grab and stack it while avoiding flying obstacles that can knock the luggage off the top of the car.
Players, and the Truckster, journey through five levels - including a stop at Cousin Eddie's house - to the final pay-off at a vacation rental.
Online Call to Action
HomeAway, with its elaborate online campaign, is continuing a trend that became apparent last year with several Super Bowl spots - the integration of a call-to-action during the ad that prompted the viewer to go to the internet to find out more about the company or the ad itself, according to Mario Sgambelluri, associate publisher for iMediaConnection.com.
Last year's Super Bowl ad for Jack in the Box best illustrated this trend, he says. In the ad, the Jack character gets hit by a bus. Viewers were then directed to a website where they got an update from an ER doctor and watched a cell phone video of the accident.
