Tripadvisor’s ‘Juicy’ Ad for Viator

Skift Take

Tripadvisor and Viator, or at least the creative department, have a sense of humor — and it is effective.

— Dennis Schaal

Tripadvisor’s national ad campaign touting its Viator tours and activities brand includes a spot called “Viator Makes Museum Tours Juicy Again.”

Tripadvisor CEO Matt Goldberg told those assembled at an investor meeting Thursday that its national brand campaign for Viator “has reached hundreds of millions of travelers, and we’ve seen significant growth in our brand health and awareness, with benefits like rising brand search and direct traffic.”

The “Do More With Viator” campaign launched last year and is Viator’s first national brand campaign since Tripadvisor acquired it in 2014.

“Viator Makes Museum Tours Juicy Again” launched in May, but has been only on streaming services and in local ads recently. In the past 30 days, the spot attracted an estimated 1.2 million TV ad impressions, according to analytics firm iSpot.tv.

The 30-second “juicy” spot, one of about a half-dozen in the campaign that ran on various channels, platforms and YouTube, depicts a woman on a New York City museum tour.

“We were on a guided museum tour in New York,” she says, holding a phone with the Viator app. Now, I’m not an art person. At least I wasn’t an art person. Wasn’t much of a museum person. But then I found something that spoke to me.”

That “something” is a view of Venus’ butt from the 1828 James Ward painting, “Venus Rising From Her Coach.” There is no dialogue for the next 14 seconds of the half-minute ad, when the spot depicts various nudes at the museum and other works of art. The woman smiles, and looks on in amazement. The her tears start flowing in a burst of emotion.

The message is that along with the people you meet, tours and activities are the most deeply felt things about travel.

The final line: “One app, over 300,000 travel experiences you’ll remember. Do more with Viator.”

Tripadvisor’s Tours and Activities Opportunity

Goldberg has been talking up Viator’s potential, noting that most tours and activities are still offline, and people don’t know there is a platform to book them.

“We need to build awareness because we have strong product market fit, and untapped demand that’s currently largely unmet,” Goldberg to the investment conference. “And there are tens of billions of dollars of addressable opportunity, if we get it right.”