Best Travel Ads This Week: Language of Romance to Unbound Maple Leaf

Fast and straight-forward or languid and lovely, there’s no right way to attract visitors and customers except to be authentic while highlighting what matters to them most.

Two destinations and three airlines produced this week’s travel ads. They span from LAN Airlines’ quick 30-second spots to British Airways’ 5-minute movies that are emotional to the point of being exploitative.

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

In honor of Canada Day, the Canadian Tourism Commission asked Chairman Ting Industries, an experimental visual workshop, to paint the Canadian maple leaf in downtown Vancouver. The result was a giant graphic made up of 63 icons illustrating the Canadian way of life. For similar campaigns, check out the top 14 ambient ad campaigns of 2013.

Air France is pushing its social media engagement in a new ad spot, which was released in French, Spanish, and English. The video shows Air France’s social media answering flyers’ questions regarding flight times, destinations, and luggage at all times of the day. Air France has five country-specific Twitter accounts and our social intelligence platform SkiftSocial shows @AirFranceFR is the most active.

Czech Tourism released three new ads this week appealing to tourists looking for relaxation, romance, or a modern holiday. The targeted ads are designed for a specific audience with the relaxation spot featuring the country’s outdoors and spas and the modern spot focusing on Prague’s restaurants and cultural scene. Beautiful, though a touch too whimsical, the ads focus on the country rather than its most well-known gem, Prague.

British Airways India launched a campaign in the U.S. this week targeting India ex-pats in the United States. The campaign features real people and started today with a 5-minute video in which an Indian mother is reunited with her son in Bombay. The campaign is emotional, close to the point of being exploitative, but also a smart content and social media play. The airline is promoting the recipe that inspired the first story on its website and answering all comments on the YouTube video page.

LAN Airlines released a new ad campaign in Peru this week promoting international travel to New York and Madrid. The ads argue that New York’s 5,538 buildings and Madrid’s 300,214 trees won’t change much over the next couple months, but the airfares to get here certainly will. Cute, quick, and its ultimate push to buy early is clear.