Finding and booking a place to stay is the worst part of the travel experience. With an online travel category plagued by parity and the constant fear of getting it wrong, consumers find themselves spending hours searching. Frustration and the feeling of surrender once they finally book is rife. To provide some clarity and prove that Hotels.com is different, in 2014 we launched The Obvious Choice Campaign and enlisted a little help from our biggest fan, Captain Obvious.
We made Captain Obvious, once just a phrase in popular culture, a walking, talking advocate for the brand. Pointing out all the things that make Hotels.com the obvious choice for consumers, in a way only he can.
Captain Obvious proved the ideal vehicle by which to manifest the brand's cultural relevance. Through the messages he delivered and the execution of ideas across multiple channels, Captain Obvious has captured the public's imagination and contributed to repositioning the Hotels.com brand as the Obvious Choice.
In 2016, our task was to keep the character fresh and relevant to the target audience. So, Captain Obvious laced up his running shoes and joined the Presidential race.
The use of Captain Obvious is a multi-faceted, multi-media effort with executions ranging from television, online video, interactive video, digital, merchandise, downloadable content, social content, e-mail, live twitter events, in-person running events and even appearances on live television. Each tactic builds upon one another to bring more life, context and depth to the character and the brand in the eyes of our consumers.
Since the introduction of Captain Obvious Unaided Brand Awareness has increased, as well as the linkage between Captain Obvious Awareness and the Brand (BrainJuicer). The most recent campaign, Running for President, ignited a 900% increase in social mentions of Captain Obvious, many of these from people pledging their vote to him. As well as over 60 million views of his GIF content. Captain Obvious' Presidential run drove over 432.7 million earned media impressions, including national and local press.
