Case Study: Expedia
Challenge
As
Director of Global Marketing and Communications for
Expedia, my first priority was to teach this 800 lb.
gorilla to speak. Though Expedia had securely established
itself as the world's leading online travel marketplace,
a recent study by Forester Research had shown that
the company's relationships with its global travel
industry partners were strained at best. Perceptions
of the company among hotels, airlines and others in
the industry had been damaged both by its aggressive
growth strategies and by a basic lack of sustained
industry communications. And so I set to work building
the company's first comprehensive B2B marketing communications
program from the ground up.
Solution
Following
an intensive research and development cycle, the complete
program eventually included the company's first
fully articulated corporate branding and consistent
strategic messaging across its family of consumer
brands (including Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, TripAdvisor
and several others) and 58 national markets worldwide.
The ads pictured above were part of a pioneering advertising
strategy and campaign, which featured the success
stories of Expedia travel industry partners such as
Hawaiian and Continental Airlines, Hertz, Hyatt, ResortQuest
and others. This type of B2B outreach was an industry
first, and generated a great deal of goodwill and was a major step in rebuilding the company's relationships within the global travel industry.
Establishing
this program also involved creating a comprehensive
set of mission-critical print, film and online sales,
marketing communications media, such as the business
partner website pictured at left, new industry print
and email newsletters, as well as placed editorial
columns and features which I wrote for the president. |
