Dubai Corporation of Tourism & Commerce Marketing with Emirates airline, Greek National Tourist Organization, Hilton Worldwide, Lufthansa and Meliá Hotels International recognized for successful campaigns that exemplify innovation

BERLIN - Thursday, March 5th 2015 [ME NewsWire]

ITB Berlin 2015

(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Expedia® Media Solutions, the advertising division of the Expedia group, announced the recipients of its 2014 EMEA Partner Awards at ITB Berlin, the world’s leading travel trade show. The annual EMEA Partner Awards are part of Expedia Media Solutions’ global awards program which recognizes original and groundbreaking campaigns with exemplary innovation and success in digital marketing and advertising.

Expedia Media Solutions consults with its partners to develop campaigns that effectively leverage the Expedia group platforms, products and vast partner network. By tapping into Expedia Media Solutions’ expertise and reach, marketers can create effective, cross-brand campaigns that use innovative tactics and drive impressive results like those demonstrated by this year’s EMEA Partner Awards recipients.

“Our 2014 EMEA Partner Award winners, together with our digital marketing consultants, developed creative and innovative campaigns that drove strong results for their respective brands,” said Noah Tratt, senior global vice president, Expedia Media Solutions. “We appreciate the collaboration and fresh thinking behind the winning partner campaigns, and congratulate each winner on our shared success.”

The annual awards recognize campaigns across five travel marketing categories. This year’s winners include:

2014 EMEA Hotel Campaign of the Year: Meliá Hotels International

Meliá Hotels International partnered with Expedia Media Solutions to create a media campaign on Expedia’s UK and German sites that positioned the brand as innovative while gaining market share in the hotel category and increasing its newsletter subscriber base. Expedia built a microsite to host the “Find Your Meliá” quiz and video content that aligned with Expedia’s U.S. brand marketing strategy, “Find Yours.” The quiz encouraged microsite visitors to think about how their personal travel preferences could be met by a Meliá brand or hotel type, driving engagement with the brand while also capturing consumer data. The play-on-demand, high-tempo videos propelled the viewer through the highlights and hidden gems of featured destinations to create an adventurous mood and awaken the desire to experience more than just the hotel. The strategy proved to be an effective way of communicating the breadth and range of the Meliá brand and its unique hotels to Expedia audiences. The quiz drove an impactful level of user engagement and garnered more than 3,100 newsletter subscribers for Meliá during the campaign.

2014 EMEA Airline Campaign of the Year: Lufthansa

Expedia Media Solutions and Lufthansa Airlines, the flagship German carrier and largest airline in Europe, partnered in the UK and Germany to launch “Travel IQ,” a campaign promoting Lufthansa’s routes from those originating markets to Southeast Asia destinations. Hosted on Expedia’s German and UK points-of-sale, the Expedia Media Solutions team leveraged gamification with an airline partner for the first time, along with the power of social sharing, to educate Expedia visitors in a fun and playful way. The interactive game challenged users to correctly pin locations to a map, against the clock, and answer a series of questions related to destinations and attractions in Asia. More than 12,000 players competed for the chance to win a pair of Lufthansa tickets to their choice destination, and players in Germany spent nearly three minutes engaging with the game. Travel IQ also encouraged participants to compete against each other by inviting them to share their scores on social media.

2014 EMEA Destination Campaign of the Year: Greek National Tourist Organization

Following a long economic recession that had taken a toll on tourism, the Greek National Tourist Organization (GNTO) engaged Expedia Media Solutions to develop a campaign that would increase visitors year-round. Expedia Media Solutions created the “What’s your pleasure?” campaign, leveraging integrated landing pages, GNTO’s social platforms, banner ads, and a Pinterest sweepstakes to drive engagement with U.S., UK and Australian audiences. The landing pages made it easy for travelers to explore four exciting cities in Greece, along with a series of activities, under the thematic pillars of culture, gastronomy, adventure and leisure. Banner ads on Expedia and Travelocity points-of-sale and social platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ sent all users to the Pinterest competition, where they could win a dream holiday to Greece for two people. By making it easy for travelers to discover new and exciting destinations and activities in Greece, the campaign delivered robust results. Compared to the prior year, passenger demand for travel to Greece increased in key markets: 30 percent in Germany, 34 percent in Australia, 37 percent in the U.S., 65 percent in the UK, and 195 percent in India.

2014 EMEA Most Innovative Campaign of the Year: Dubai Corporation of Tourism & Commerce Marketing with Emirates airline

Dubai Corporation of Tourism & Commerce Marketing created an unprecedented partnership with the largest international airline, Emirates airline, to increase year-over-year early bird bookings in the first quarter of 2015, and turned to Expedia Media Solutions to implement an integrated online and offline campaign. Leveraging the power and innovation of Expedia’s branding platform, “Travel Yourself Interesting,” Expedia Media Solutions created a dedicated, content-rich landing page that positioned Dubai as an ideal destination. The co-branded hub included videos, an interest-driven navigation bar, social media and blog posts, as well as Dubai travel offers. The campaign ran on Expedia’s UK, German, Italian and Australian points-of-sale and leveraged sophisticated targeting to reach travelers while they were planning a holiday. To further drive performance and reach a vast audience, specific targets included family travelers, and travelers researching competitive destinations in the region, sunny and shopping destinations. The multifaceted campaign also leveraged co-branded Expedia “Travel Yourself Interesting” television ads in the UK, as well as a digital campaign on YouTube. The combination of offline and online campaign elements granted exceptional visibility for both partners. In November and December 2014, the campaign garnered more than 23 million impressions through video, display and on-site ads, and helped Emirates airline increase passengers by an average of 20 percent across Germany, Italy, UK and the U.S., all outpacing the 2014 average increase in passengers.

2014 EMEA TravelAds Partner of the Year: Hilton Worldwide

Hilton Worldwide turned to Expedia Media Solutions to amplify its 2014 quarterly seasonal sale campaigns. To create awareness, Hilton Worldwide leveraged the power of display advertising on Expedia sites and Expedia’s proprietary TravelAds product, which allows hotels to target in-market travelers through paid search and sponsored listings.

About Expedia Media Solutions

Formed in 2007, Expedia Media Solutions is dedicated to building online and offline media partnerships for travel and non-travel brand advertisers and to enable them to leverage the unique media value of Expedia’s network of leading travel brands and global points of sale. Expedia Media Solutions is operated by Expedia, Inc. For more information, visit www.advertising.expedia.com.

About the Expedia group

The Expedia group (NASDAQ: EXPE) is one of the world’s largest travel companies, with an extensive brand portfolio that includes leading online travel brands, such as:

    Expedia.com®, the world’s largest full service online travel agency with localized sites in 31 countries
    Hotels.com®, the hotel specialist with localized sites in more than 60 countries
    Hotwire®, a leading discount travel site that offers opaque deals in 12 countries throughout North America, Europe and Asia
    Travelocity®, a pioneer in online travel and a leading online travel agency in the US and Canada
    Egencia®, the world's fifth largest corporate travel management company
    eLong™, a leading mobile and online travel service provider in China
    Venere.com™, the online hotel reservation specialist in Europe
    trivago®, a leading online hotel metasearch company with sites in 49 countries
    Wotif Group, a leading operator of travel brands in the Asia-Pacific region, including Wotif.com®, lastminute.com.au®, travel.com.au, Asia Web Direct®, LateStays.com, GoDo.com.au and Arnold Travel Technology
    Expedia Local Expert®, a provider of online and in-market concierge services, activities, experiences and ground transportation in hundreds of destinations worldwide
    Classic Vacations®, a top luxury travel specialist
    Expedia® CruiseShipCenters®, a provider of exceptional value and expert advice for travelers booking cruises and vacations through its network of 180 franchise locations across North America
    CarRentals.com™, the premier car rental booking company on the web

The company delivers consumers value in leisure and business travel, drives incremental demand and direct bookings to travel suppliers, and provides advertisers the opportunity to reach a highly valuable audience of in-market consumers through Expedia® Media Solutions. Expedia also powers bookings for some of the world’s leading airlines and hotels, top consumer brands, high traffic websites, and thousands of active affiliates through Expedia® Affiliate Network. For corporate and industry news and views, visit us at www.expediainc.com or follow us on Twitter @expediainc.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. © 2015 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST: 2029030-50

Contacts

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