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Best Travel Ads This Week: Brands Building Emotional Connections


Skift Take

It can be difficult to determine whether travel companies are selling daydreams and memories or luggage and plane tickets today as brands align themselves with experiences rather than the details of their products.

In this week’s travel ad roundup, brands take viewers through a slideshow of images that evoke a sense of wanderlust, adventure, and love, while the products that make these trips possible take a backseat to the emotions that they stir up.

Expedia

Expedia‘s new ad pulls on the heart strings. It begins with several characters gazing at photos of faraway adventures while mindlessly going through the daily grind. The video then shows them booking through the Expedia app and actually embarking on the trip that they’ve dream about. Anyone that’s ever been caught up in a daydream can emphasize with the ad.

Samsonite

Samsonite compares its luggage to memories and adventure by asking the weight of these immeasurable concepts against an array of beautiful travel images. The luggage is positioned as a facilitator of these experiences with smart product placements throughout the video.

Qantas Airways

Qantas Airways promotes its new Airbus A330 with lie-flat business class seats with unique ad that shows only a woman’s face throughout. The commercial debates whether sleep or the airline’s in-flight entertainment will win the passengers’ attention, a nod to the internal debate that most flyers go through on long-haul flights.

Visit Scotland 

This is one of three of Visit Scotland’s TV ads broadcasting as part of its Brilliant Moments campaign. The video highlights the activities available in destinations across the country with a strong focus on outdoor attractions as Europe and U.S. head into the summer travel season.

Visit Florida

Visit Florida is making the most of the northeast U.S.’s unusually cold and snowy winter by reminding the region’s residents that sun and beaches are literally just a flight away. By putting a comical spin on the marketing, Visit Florida’s ads avoid coming off as negative or pushy.

For all of our SkiftAds of the week, view our archives here.

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