Hotwire: 12 months of re-education for media and consumers
Hotwire.com is a leading discount travel site with low rates on airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, cruises and vacation packages. In recent years, against a more crowded and noisy landscape, the Hotwire brand's value proposition and differentiators had become more difficult for consumers to grasp quickly. Atomic won the Hotwire review in late 2007 with a re-education and awareness campaign to promote the brand's unique differentiators to both the press and consumers, increase awareness of Hotwire's hotel offerings and drive traffic to the Hotwire site.
ComContext analysis of historical media and blog coverage of the company and other discount travel sites sparked insights that drove a communications strategy centered around the site's superior no bidding, no hassle, no games, unsold inventory business model. Armed with a clear understanding of the PR strategies of top competitors, key trends and detailed content histories of key opinion leaders, the agency aligned content around a portfolio of desired story themes and tailored them by contact, then engaged consistently across print, broadcast, and digital media and bloggers.
Over the next 12 months of Atomic/Hotwire collaboration, the Hotwire brand's coverage in the media and blogosphere increased dramatically; during one two week time period, the Wall Street Journal covered Hotwire on six separate occasions by four separate writers. Other noteworthy coverage has included Associated Press, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, USA Weekend, and the Washington Post.
Coverage of Hotwire's hotel offerings increased 150%, car rental coverage increased more than 250%. Due to their careful construction, desired Hotwire positioning and messaging came through accurately in almost every piece, helping to clearly differentiatiate the site from its primary opaque pricing competitor: Priceline. According to one senior Hotwire executive,"We haven't had coverage this great since our launch in 2000."
1 Comments
could be much much better
