Challenge
Thomson’s reputation is for cheap and cheerful holidays to Spain and the Balearic islands, but they also sell bespoke holidays and sell each of the components of a holiday separately as well, i.e. hotels and flights. The challenge for Media Contacts was to use digital channels to shift consumer perception and increase revenue from the breadth of Thomson products available.
Solution
Understanding how consumers search for their travel needs
In order to gain an understanding of how people search, Media Contacts ran a joint research study with Yahoo Search Marketing and Comscore to better understand travel search behaviour. The key insight was that people use a number of different keywords over a 90 day period, starting with research related terms and then fine tuning as they decide their preferred destination. We also found that different people use different terms to search for the exact same thing.
Be ubiquitous whenever someone looks for travel
Based on this observation, Media Contacts decided that Thomson should always appear whenever someone was looking for a travel related product online. We expanded Thomson’s keyword list to over 1 million terms, covering every possible variation of destination and type of travel need. Tailored copy and deep-links through to relevant content was created for all terms.
Providing inspiration in the early stages
The final part of the jigsaw was to ensure that Thomson was seeded in people’s minds earlier in the process. Media Contacts brokered a number of high reach, content based partnerships with the likes of Yahoo, AOL and Tiscali. Video content and search functionality from the Thomson site were placed within the travel channels to provide inspiration to consumers in the planning stages of their holiday.
Dialogue not monologue
To complement these partnerships, and position Thomson as an aid to the consumer, we also brokered a partnership with community search product, Yahoo Answers. Thomson could answer travellers’ questions and encourage the community to share their thoughts and as such generate their own content.
Results
Success for Thomson is about increased passengers and the attached revenue. As a result of this activity, passengers were up 289% YOY and revenue up a staggering 300%!