Skift Take
HomeAway, we didn't know you had it in you. Well done.
One piece of HomeAway’s “Whole Vacation” marketing campaign is a lot smarter than expected as the vacation rental site enlisted rapper Prince Ea, with his 1.36 million Facebook fans, for a soft-sell and emotional three-minute and 25 second video extolling the life-altering and spiritual attributes of living in the moment and taking a vacation.
Called Working to Live or Living to Work?, Prince Ea talks about a study last year that showed that “half of us chose not to take our full vacations.” We know exactly what Prince Ea is talking about when it comes to unused vacation time.
He raps on: “Question: Don’t you think it’s crazy that so many of us go into work even when we don’t need to be there. Times that we could be on the beach buried in sand or traveling the earth. We spend it in the office, traveling from desk to desk, buried in paperwork….”
“See we all need time to get away from the race for our family, friends. For the sake of our mental state. Time to rewind, recharge and reconnect…”
The Influencer Strategy
The video is part of HomeAway’s plan to use social media influencers to spread its message about the allures of a vacation with the whole family staying in a vacation rental.
But this video doesn’t hit you over the head with the sales pitch.
“Life, ladies and gentlemen is all about moments. No one in history has ever been able to hold onto one. Not a single soul. And you never get them back. There one goes.”
“Ask yourself, now many trips did you almost take? How many sites have you almost seen? How many moments have you lost thinking about the next one, thinking about once you get this or get there, maybe that will be the best one.”
The HomeAway pitch comes at the very end, and it isn’t offensive. “Holidays should be a time when we go away and come together. From now on let’s take a whole vacation and be fully present, creating memories that will last forever.”
He doesn’t utter the name “HomeAway” even once during the video. As he gazes in the distance at a night sky filled with city lights, these words appear: “Take Your #WholeVacation. HomeAway.”
Here’s the video:
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Tags: advertising, marketing, someway, vacation rentals
Photo credit: Rapper Prince Ea in a video for HomeAway rapping about the shame of the rat race in unused vacation time. HomeAway