Skift Take

At this point, vacationers have already made their holiday plans. It's good timing to publish videos that entertain as opposed to ones that promote.

Promotions for summer travel across all media ramped up in April and peaked in May, but noise has quieted down in June, especially on YouTube.

Among the trends that we saw in video uploads Father’s Day content, humor, and non-English speaking videos promoting the World Cup were prevalent.

According to the 2,500 brands that SkiftIQ tracks, 22 fewer brands published videos this month, down from 390 in May. The total number of videos also decreased by 161 from 2,626 to 2,465 in June.

Unlike April and May’s findings, the Airlines sector produced the most videos industry-wide at 802, while Destinations came in a close second at 786.

At a closer look, more than half of the videos in the Airline sector were churned out by one airline: TAP Portugal’s campaign for its new destinations, “Speaker’s Corner” accumulated 530 micro-videos of contestants who drew and spoke their way as an entry to winning a pair of round-trip tickets.

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Father’s Day Moments:

Last month, Walt Disney World Resorts celebrated cool moms for Mother’s Day and this month, the brand celebrated Father’s Day. Its video, “Happy Prince Charming” garnered over one million views and showed just how sweetly heroic dads can be.

WestJet took the dad-as-the-hero a step further with their partnership with the Ronald McDonald House Charities Canada and Saskatoon Maintenance Manager. One of the airline’s employee, Medel Villena, trained as a temporary transit employee as a backup for Marc Grimard, a hard-working dad. Villena presents him with a free roundtrip ticket so he can visit his son — suffering from a heart condition — with his family for Father’s Day. Truly, a selfless gift from one father to another. This video was a tear jerker and got over 800,000 views.

American Humor:

The new Greyhound tagline, “Tour in Style” was depicted by a metal rock group–hinting at some level of sophistication by being British–who set a new standard. Their tour manager booked them on a Greyhound bus with dollar fares that turned out to be a comfortable, courteous and friendly ride.

A high pitch, repetitive sound can be mistaken for a mom’s cackle or a dolphin’s greeting. SeaWorld and Coca Cola livened up its 50th anniversary with lighthearted video of a mom experiencing a laughing fit, which sounded like dolphin speak. Her laugh became uncontrollable as her unintended conversation with the dolphins progressed.

California Chrome’s win at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness made it a household name. The horse’s other half, its jockey, Victor Espinoza was addressed by twenty Californians about how to win the next race. Visit California recorded each person’s best tip amidst backdrops for notable tourist sites.

No Influencers made it to the top of our YouTube list for the past two months. But this month, Nadine Sykor, published a video completely unrelated to travel about a new body movement craze, “Eggs and #BaconDance.” If you were not already rolling on the floor laughing like a sizzling bacon, you will be. Her current partners’ — Contiki and Viator — audience are eating this yummy move.

When you look at the casino resorts in Las Vegas, positioning requires making an impression and staying competitive. Just like keeping up with the Jones’. In this video, Visit Las Vegas pits its neighbors passive aggressively against each other in a ridiculous pageant of lawn and property accoutrements. Are white lions and humongous palm trees still in?

Inflight and Off-flight Contests:

Passengers aboard an Azul flight were welcomed with a smile and goodie bags. Little did they know that there were more freebies on the way. When the passengers got to the baggage claim area, boxes wrapped in red “Americanas.com” plastic were labeled with winner’s names. Azul partnered with Samsung to give away 40″ flat screen televisions at Congonhas-São Paolo airport. Never seen that many people smile at baggage claim.

Do you have the patience to win a roundtrip ticket to go to the World Cup? Lufthansa/Fanhansa dared travelers to live with samba, morning, noon and night! The music is great, but can you imagine it following you everywhere you go? One contestant, finally cracked. The winner truly deserved to win, he was quite hospitable, had a great attitude and he genuinely enjoyed the bands company.

Atypical Model Attracts Viewers:

Trivago’s commercial featured a blonde woman speaking impeccable Japanese. It was surprising to see that the spokesperson wasn’t of Japanese origin. This how-to video was minimal. There were no images of exotic places of travel, just the user interface, text and the model. Although it had the lowest approval ratings in the top ten, the direct approach proved to be effective at two million views.

Learn More About Your Competition on SkiftIQ

Brand Sector Title Duration (seconds) Publish Date (2014) Views Approval Ratings
trivago Bookings and Tools trivago TV commercial (Japanese) 61 6/18/2014 2,082,926 0.71
Walt Disney World Resorts Destinations Happy Prince Charming Day | Father’s Day 112 6/11/2014 1,019,503 0.97
WestJet Airlines Father’s Day Surprise 299 6/4/2014 822,206 0.98
Azul Airlines A Torcida Unida 138 6/14/2014 529,099 0.90
Greyhound Ground Transport Greyhound: Tour in Style 31 6/17/2014 239,234 1.00
Vegas Destinations Decked Out 61 6/10/2014 175,901 0.85
SeaWorld Orlando Destinations Mom Speaks Dolphin 16 6/9/2014 135,567 0.98
Hey Nadine Influencers EGGS and #BACONDANCE 46 6/3/2014 114,173 0.91
Visit California Destinations Tips for Victor Espinoza to Win the Triple Crown 134 6/6/2014 102,918 0.94
Lufthansa Airlines Nonstop Samba 157 6/5/2014 83,396 1.00

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Our daily coverage of the global travel industry. Written by editors and analysts from across Skift’s brands.

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Tags: azul, disney parks, greyhound, las vegas, lufthansa, seaworld, skiftiq, trivago, visitcalifornia, westjet, youtube

Photo credit: Still from, "Happy Prince Charming Day." Disney Parks / YouTube

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