TripAdvisor Launches Its First National Ad Campaign Touting Its Hotel Reviews

Delayed by a couple of months, TripAdvisor today launched its first national TV advertising campaign, touting how “every experience matters,” and emphasizing the theme that its hotel reviews can ensure that no such experiences get wasted through uninformed trip choices.

The debut, on the final day of its financial third quarter, includes two U.S. advertisements, “The Vacationer” and “Room Service.”

TripAdvisor says it is also testing a third advertisement in Argentina, France and Spain.

Here are TripAdvisor’s two 30-second commercials for the U.S. market:

Here’s the ad that TripAdvisor is testing in Spain, and it’s very similar, if not identical, with the exception of the language, to an ad that TripAdvisor tested earlier this Summer in the U.S.

TripAdvisor is testing a French version of the same ad in France.

TripAdvisor is going big with its national advertising campaign in the U.S., expecting to spend $40 million to $50 million on it in 2013, just as it is fine-tuning its hotel metasearch product, which has been a tad slow on the uptake.

TripAdvisor tested a different advertisement in six cities in July, but withdrew it, and reorganized its marketing leadership.

“After growing to become the world’s largest travel site in the last 13 years, we feel now is the time to enlist other channels to help us share our story, including advertising on television,” says Barbara Messing, chief marketing officer at TripAdvisor. “There are 260 million unique visitors to TripAdvisor every month which is amazing, but that also means there are still over 2 billion internet users we want to reach. With this first-ever television campaign, we want to make one message loud and clear: every experience counts and sharing it through reviews and opinions matters.”

TripAdvisor calls the advertising push its “Bubbles” campaign, referring to its “five bubble scale” for its ratings and reviews.

The two 30-second spots were developed and are being handled by Ari Merkin, Supply and Demand, Hill Holiday Media, and CrossMedia.