Five best travel ads this week: Awesome, awkward, and award-winning

This week’s SkiftAds focus on the importance of the digital experience in travel today. Travel brands like AirBaltic and Hyatt are giving customers an incentive through rewards and great design to engage with them online and on mobile devices.

And even though so much of the travel process now takes place online, it’s what happens when we get out from behind our laptops and smartphones that drives those digital experiences.

FOR ALL OF OUR SKIFTADS OF THE WEEK COLLECTION, CHECK OUT OUR ARCHIVES HERE.

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This is awesome: AirBaltic is offering extra miles to any flyers that can burn as many calories as were flown within 24 hours of landing. A flight from the capital of Latvia, Riga, to Berlin is 1,044 miles; a 150-pound person could burn that many calories running for one hour at a 7-minute/mile pace. Hotels are jumping on the health bandwagon and this is an innovative way for airlines to do so as well.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkx97yD-Z8c]
Well, this is awkward. The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission released this video promoting e-hail apps last week after receiving judge approval for the city’s yearlong pilot program. Uber and Hailo were the first to be approved for the program, but New York livery car groups won a bid to block the pilot program less than one week later.

If the program never goes through, this video will serve as reminder of what the “smartphone hail” might have looked like.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13869ZHdVEM]

Hyatt Hotels reveals its website and booking platform redesign in a surprisingly engaging video. The new platform is accessible in ten languages and encourages social sharing to cater to its guests, which the group realizes are pressed for time, on multiple devices, and seeking out reviews on third-party sites.

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One last winter video before beaches and greener hills star in travel videos and ad campaigns: Leo Zuckerman’s video won first place in the Intersection competition of The World Ski & Snowboard Festival in Whistler, BC in mid-April. The video had to include park and Whistler in-bound terrain footage, but Zuckerman adds another layer onto of the sports videography with a dark but inspiring soundtrack.