When it comes to the art of producing collateral to promote a product or service aka ‘advertising’, there aren’t all that many boundaries or restrictions.
You want to get your message across through a travel ad in a fresh way that’ll spark interest, but not mislead or irritate viewers.
However, that said there are a few things you want to avoid in advertising if you want to keep your reputation and remain front of mind among travellers, here are three:
1. Don’t badmouth the competitor in
One of roomsXML’s customer service gurus, Hayden, accidentally typed in www.roomsxml.com , into the Google search rather than in the URL. The paid advert at the top of the page said:
“Working with roomsXML?” Discover… (insert brand name)
Goes against Google AdWords policy. It was a deliberate ploy to leverage off the success of roomsXML.
But I can understand their jealousy.
2. Competitors may annoy you, but don’t steal from them
While it’s great to be inspired by your surroundings, it’s best not to completely do a copy and paste.
Develop some originality, it’ll help your brand stand out from the rest.
3. Click bait upsets
I gathered at my brother’s place at 9.00am of the morning of the Connor McGregor fight to begin drinking and eating barbecue.
Prior to the game I found an online article on Connor McGregor about to be done for performance enhancing drug use.
The article was pretty legit. It allowed people to over train, get an unfair advantage. WADA were about to ban it, UFC were on the case. Similar actions to a steroid but natural.
The author was able to get a sample of the substance and an unofficial training regime to take it.
Two thirds of the way through the tone of the article changed. The author was looking forward to getting ripped on his four-week program of Geneticore Boost.
By time I got to the end, I was angry. Although gee, I would love to be ripped without needing to do any exercise. I might buy The Abbominator Pro… if it’s on television it’s true right?
READ: ‘Why’ – the most important question in travel
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