Travel case study

THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY + SPONCON

How THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY HAS CHANGED AND WILL EVOLVE POST-PANDEMIC

One interesting comparison between the travel industry and the human experience, is the adaptability we must have in order to survive. As we continue to navigate this post-pandemic life, we will see online content and digital strategies mold themselves to serve the voice of the brands to the wants and needs of consumers as they continually change in this environment. As a content agency, we must be aware of not only brand voices, but also consumer needs. It is our job to serve the advertisers we represent the best strategies, designs, and ideas to best resonate with the audience and their unique needs from the travel industry. Over the past two years, we wrote about trends like staying local, road tripping, staycations, sustainable travel options, a focus on the quality of travel over quantity, and finally the return of dream vacations to far-flung destinations. As things have opened up and restrictions lifted, we will expand this lens with our brands. Within this case study, we will draw from learnings in this industry over the past year and showcase the successes across our work so far in 2022.

THE STATE OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY

2022

82%

We welcomed 2022 in with a long, loud applause and finally booked those long-awaited travel plans. Let's assess what's next.

An American Society Society of Travel Advisers survey found that 82 percent of Americans are more likely to travel abroad in the coming months, now that inbound COVID-19 testing requirements have been lifted.

LET"S TAKE A LOOK

2022

82%

$1.15 T

According to the US Travel Association, Americans are projected to spend $1.15 trillion on travel in 2023. This projection has been adjusted for inflation and includes both domestic and international trips for business and leisure.

END-To-end solutions, From End to end

CASE STUDY:

Qatar Airways, in conjunction with The StoryStudio, worked together to create a graphic, engaging story that not only allows the reader to explore and interact with Qatar airline features and offerings, but also dive into the unique destinations within the world that Qatar flies to out of SFO. Bay Area readers were invited to share in the joys of Africa and what getting there safely - and in style - looks like these days. Promoted to highly-targeted audiences by Hearst first-party data, Qatar Airways was able to reach custom audiences based on their geographic, demographics, and more. The runway was sleek for this story. As you scroll on the right, you'll notice custom lightbox features for destinations, videos, slideshows, and other graphic features to help tell the stry of comfort, luxury, ans safety. Flight time was smooth. We were able to optimize gears for no turbulence and ensure a luxurious, and successful journey. Travel is a competitive vertical. Sponsored content is a great tactic to tell all the unique stories that an experience and destinations hold to stand above the competition. We were able to not only tell one story about Qatar, but we were able to tell multiple within the space we created both graphically and by use of compelling content to educate readers. And joyously, we overdelivered.

THE RUNWAY

Landing GEARS

5,128,675 impressions

23,256 engagements

2:14 minutes

3,256 interactions

Over the course of promotion, over 5M impressions were realized from native and social ad units driving viewers to the story page.

Over 23k+ individual viewers engaged with the Qatar Airways experience, staying on the page for longer than 30 seconds.

Viewers spent an average of 2:14 minutes on the story page interacting with the experience.

Interactions are clicks from users that navigated or explored the features throughout the experience.

Placements featured on:

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Travelers ourselves, our work spans across the nation, and even internationally with clients such as Qatar Airways and Ski Canada. Here are just a few markets we are saturating with regional travel content, with some links to content below.

Alaska Airlines

Yosemite

South Padre Island

Wachusett Mountain

Qatar Airways

Louisville Tourism

Highway 1 Discovery Route

Ka'anapali Beach Resort Association

The Ritz-Carlton

Transport to these destinations:

Travel in 2020 and 2021 mostly focused on safety. Whether it be how to get where you're going, what brands are doing to make you feel safe, what technology has emerged, as well as the support that is available.

To keep up with the pandemic-related changes internally, more and more brands have invested in community and charitable initiatives to build awareness and grow sentiment with consumers.

The future for travel is bright. Statistics show increased demand for travel, positive outlooks from consumers for the travel industry, and support from state and federal levels. Now it is time to supply the readers information and inspiration!

Many times, goals are discussed on our brainstorm calls. On these calls, we assess the industry, the consumers, and the needs of the brand itself to paint a picture of the right message for our sponsored effort and the audience.

CASE STUDY:

SHREDDING THE GNAR

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A VALIENT MOUNTAIN RUN

Wachusett Mountain, in conjunction with Hearst StoryStudio, created an interactive story featuring the many reasons Wachusett’s winter has stoke. We used lots of footage for video engagement, a number ticker, map, testimonials, as well as an Instagram gallery and numerous calls to action to drive metrics and readership. At a minimum, we guaranteed 1M impressions and 5000 engagements to 18+-year-old ski enthusiasts in Massachusetts over 90 days. We were able to deliver 140% of the impressions guaranteed to score a whopping 29,395 page views – which is almost 6x the guarantee. This amount of success is a testament to not only the content itself, but the assets, timing, flow, resource and structure of the piece. Given a pandemic forcing many to stay at home, Wachusett Mtn was able to provide respite and excitement for urban dwellers for midweek and weekend escapes. Demographics on average skewed males 25+ years of age. Mostly, content was experienced on mobile. Readers on average stayed with the content 4:01. industry average is 1:06 on desktop and :56 on mobile. With short reads and lots of footage to intake, this is a great measure of interest in use of assets – video is king! The top performing headlines had to do with Instagram and ratings. This tells us these types of messaging resonated with the reader most.

1,439,412 impressions

29,395 engagements

1,703 outbound clicks

Placements featured on:

4:00 minutes

Over the course of promotion, over 1.4M impressions were realized from native and social ad units driving viewers to the sotry page.

Over 29k+ individual viewers engaged with the Wachusett winter story, staying on the page for longer than 30 seconds.

Viewers spent an average of 4:00 minutes on the Wachusett story interacting with the experience.

Outbound clicks take the reader from the story to the advertiser's landing pages. We drove over 900 clicks alone to selling ski passes.

CASE STUDY:

HARNESSING THE ALOHA

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Mahalo for visiting hawaii

Ka'anapali Beach Resort Association, in continuing conjunction with StoryStudio, worked together to create a story on whats new at KBRA's many resorts and adventures. We utilized creative assets like animated photos, video, a weather widget, a map, a custom awards module as well as a module for more content to help capture the Hawaiian spirit and hospitality. The promotion included 5,500 engagements to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Austin DMAs separately. As we continue to navigate this post-pandemic world, we allow the opportunity with this story for travelers to discover, plan, and look forward to their vacation to Ka'anapali. We took our relationship with KBRA to new heights this year with a thoughtful dynamic layout, targeted to 4 major metro markets utilizing our marketplace opportunities to reach non-Hearst-owned properties. This helps with regional appeal and local resonance. Each of the markets was guaranteed a minimum number of engagements and impressions to further drive interest in these major metro areas. Together, we reached over 26,000 engagements and more than 7 million impressions. Interestingly, we included partner publication content within the story to drive further readership with the brand. We saw the most amount of outbound clicks to these links.

7,460,734 impressions

26,574 engagements

1,611 outbound clicks

Placements featured on:

2:24 minutes

Over the course of promotion, over 7M impressions were realized from native and social ad units driving viewers to the sotry page.

Over 26k+ individual viewers engaged with the Ka'anapali story, staying on the page for longer than 30 seconds.

Viewers spent an average of 4:24 minutes on the Ka'anapali story interacting with the experience.

Outbound clicks take the reader from the story to the advertiser's landing pages. We drove over 600 to the KBRA website.

Now is not the time to socially distance your brand. Take it from our advertisers showcased above. We were able to capitalize on the eyeballs online over the past year and build support, trust, community, and leadership with these content pieces. There has never been a more important time to be online. Long gone are the days when roadside billboards or TV commercials were the most popular forms of advertising. Now, it’s all about tapping into your targeted audience online, ensuring your messaging is crafted specifically for them, and reaching them in the right way. So, how can these brands connect with consumers most effectively and efficiently? Custom content paired with data-driven promotional strategies. That’s where the StoryStudio comes in. Our content marketing packages and tailored native strategies are unique to every brand partner and are managed end-to-end by our expert team. We know there is no one size fits all answer to content, and we're taking the confusion out of post-COVID messaging. Ready to get started? Contact us today to begin customizing your content plan.

We can’t recommend StoryStudio enough, from initial brainstorming to the final product we have been thoroughly impressed by the product and team. It has given us one more tool to stay ahead of the ever-changing digital landscape. It will definitely be part of our digital strategy moving forward.

Andrew Santoro, Digital Marketing Manager Wachusett Mountain Ski Area

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