Best travel ads this week: German perfectionism to quirky explorations

This week Lufthansa pokes fun at Germans, Expedia takes viewers around the world with a Wes Anderson-inspired tour, a Baltic cruise company tugs heartstrings, and two more videos provide a bit of Friday escapism.

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Germany’s national carrier Lufthansa pokes fun at the country’s national character with its new “These Germans” spot. A disdainful French businessman goes from hotel to business class while pointing out everything the Germans do right along the way — always so precise, punctual, and perfectly organized, of course. “This constant perfectionism?” he asks at the end, “fantastique.”

Expedia Australia‘s newest brand campaign borrows mightily from the work of filmmaker Wes Anderson to take viewers along one boy’s quirky journey around the world. The campaign and its slogan, “Out there, starts here,” will show up on TV, digital, and physical platforms.

This is one of those ads that prompts viewers to make bets on which product could possibly be promoted at the end. In this case, the answer is the Tallink Silja Cruise Line that sails around the Baltic Sea. Although the ultimate message of the campaign is understandable, the minute-long feature of a father-daughter dance is not.

Rather than show travelers all the reasons that they should take a beach trip, kitesurfing tour operator Sueno Surf, show them what they’d be missing. The ad surely resonates with viewers that deal with cold weather, but doesn’t do enough to show them how or why Sueno Surf will take them somewhere warmer.

Discover America just added this three-year old video, produced by NYC & Company, to its YouTube account. The video describes the city as “the capital of everything” and “five cities in one,” but somehow it manages to make New York seem downright boring.

This shootout to NYC’s five boroughs came long before the recent launch of NYC & Company’s Neighborhood X Neighborhood initiative, which encourages visitors to explore all of the city’s neighborhoods.