Expedia has appointed Ogilvy & Mather as its new advertising agency across Europe – but it is small details in today’s announcement that may give rivals a reason to worry.
The global and well-known creative ad house will operate across Expedia’s 12 markets in Europe and is charged with devising both pan-country and regional campaigns for the online travel agency.
The hiring of Ogilvy follows a six-month branding study with consultancy firm Value Engineers to establish how the OTA can build relationships with different audiences and the nuances between customers across the markets.
Senior marketing director in EMEA, Andrew Warner, says in its newer markets the focus is to establish the brand and customer acquisition, but in some of its markets such as the UK, Italy and Germany, “the challenge is around building loyalty and expanding our breadth of services”.
Details to come, apparently, but Expedia says the research has also helped form the roll-out of a series of new products and services over the course of the next year – something the company has already hinted at.
Some of the services, Expedia says, are brand new areas for the company in Europe, such as mobile and social media.
The OTA launched its Trip Companion tool for Facebook in November and has a seldom used Twitter profile in the UK, for example.
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Interesting. Do O&M really get social media though? I don’t know.
This seems like an indication that travel players start to pay attention to social media and recognize that – despite what some recent research seems to indicate – it plays an increasingly important role in the decision making process of travelers.
Ogilvy have really stepped up their sm game recently. Be interesting to see what they come up with.