Around this time last year, I was dominating organic search results with a few Super Bowl commercial keywords. (Ask me about that later).
I noticed Home Away is back on the horse again with a Super Bowl Ad. This time they are smushing babies, with a test baby, to show the problems with small hotel rooms.
Wait. What?
I will get back to that in a minute.
Last year Home Away, a leading vacation rentals company, reunited the Griswolds for the Super Bowl and showed the problems of a “Hotel Hell Vacation”. The commercial brought back Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo to their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold.
This year Home Away is taking a different route to promote vacation rentals. They are throwing a baby against a glass wall for laughs. Okay, it’s not a real baby. The Super Bowl commercial is clear to point out that it’s a test baby (in case you were concerned).
I have to admit, I was curious. It’s easy to bash, or smush, an ad without seeing it. I am not going to do that. ( “Smush” – Their word, not mine). I am also not easily offended. Throwing a test baby, against a wall is not going to bother me.
The question really comes down to effectiveness. Is the add effective? Will it stick? Will the Home Away message be delivered? And, if the message is delivered, will it matter.
Melinda K DiPerna, with BetterVacationRentals.com has expressed her vacation rental concerns and hype about Home Away here: http://bettervacationrentals.blogspot.com/2011/02/homeaway-is-it-all-hype.html
Check out the commercial below and let me know your thoughts.
Update
Tuesday, February 8 – Home Away has Pulled the Smushed Baby Ad.
We’ve concluded that despite our best intentions and efforts, the image of the test baby doll is too hurtful for us not to take action …
However, since the ad aired, we’ve been in contact with many people who expressed that they were genuinely offended by some of the images. Some of the people we talked to were concerned that our ad trivializes violence toward children, while others felt that the imagery was too shocking to be appropriate.
- Home Away CEO Brian Sharples in a press release.
What do you think? Was it worth pulling? The ad was not effective, but it was also not offensive to me either. Maybe “pulling” the ad was in the plans all along.
Side Note: – Maybe, it’s just the Star Wars geek in me, but I love the new Super Bowl Volkswagen Commercial. It’s called “The Force”.
Tags: commercial, darth vadar, home away, Sports, star wars, super bowl, Travel, Video, video of the week, Volkswagen, VRMA« « New changes with Google Sponsored ads | SEO Columbus vs Columbus SEO » »
February 9th, 2011 at 4:21 am
I don’t know, John. I think pulling of the ad was a SMART SAVE on Sharple’s part because it will calm down the small vocal advocates that were so upset by the baby smushing itself. What pulling the ad doesn’t change, however is the opinion of many owners, managers, and vacation rental experts that this is not the way we want to see HomeAway getting attention. Remember, WE pay HomeAway to advertise OUR properties so their ad money is supposed to be working to bring US more good guests.
Attention is good but this feels like the boy in 6th grade who gets it with gross bodily function antics, vs the quiet girl in the back who is nice even to the kid with “issues”. In the marketing game, it’s picking the right attention seeking behavior for your target audience. Is HomeAway trying to get the attention of rowdy folks packing in the summer beach house, or are they trying to win the mom who is still willing to cook on vacation so that the family as a whole can have more space, money saved, and a good time?
We might all be attracted to the class clown for a little while, but at some point many of us outgrow the fascination and would rather spend our time with the nice girl in the back who even invites your teen along on her family vacation.
I’ve brought my HomeAway ads back up online today after the apology. Watching my traffic carefully to see if Better Vacation Rentals gains guests from this vacation rental publicity.