LateRooms.com Launches Latest Bodacious TV Campaign

Having launched its first TV advertising campaign since 2013 just four weeks ago, hotel bookers, LateRooms.com, has reported early success from the ‘It’s Going To Be A Great Night’ marketing campaign, which has been supported by an integrated social, digital and PR approach. 

As its title suggests, LateRoom.com’s new £5M campaign cuts right to heart of the excitement associated with a great night out, with the TVCs – created by Mother London - focusing on the buzz around a night out with friends, music gigs, football matches and New Year’s Eve. 

The first ad, ‘Christmas Fancy Dress’, launched on 15 November and caused some controversy amongst political and fancy dress aficionados alike with its Pig Face character, whilst ‘Chris De Bergh’ also set social media alight with an excitable fan who loses her towel when she finds out she’s going to see her hero in concert. 

The campaign sees LateRooms.com make a bold departure from the typical mold of travel advertising, aligning the brand with the moment that customers first get excited about their next big event or occasion, rather than positioning itself as owning the travel moment itself.

The preliminary results are promising: within the first weeks of the campaign going to air brand impressions were up 30% against expected run rate, while direct traffic to the site was 5% ahead of forecasted figures for the period. LateRooms.com App downloads are up by 18% on the pre-campaign rate. 

And LateRooms.com’s bold new marketing approach has been replicated across PR and social with some similarly impressive results. Through its work with PR agency Brazen, the brand has enlisted the services of Irish vlogging superstar Cian Twomey, the UK and Ireland’s fastest growing social media personality.

Cian produced bespoke video content to amplify the ad across Facebook and Twitter - receiving almost 4 million views and 187,000 reactions, comments and shares.

Elsewhere, LateRooms.com is set to work with influential bloggers and online titles across a variety of sectors to reflect the diversity of its customer base and their needs. 

As part of the new direction of the brand, the social media conversation encompasses all three phases in the customer mindset in order to remain relevant at all points in the customer journey. The always-on and always-active strategy, headed up by Rich Kemp, means that the conversation started by the TV campaign continues directly with consumers. 

Engagement levels in the social media activity have been strong – the brand’s social channels have seen a 32% uplift in visits, and brand mentions are up 10% on pre-campaign levels. 

On-site campaign support has seen subscribers to the brand’s mail base increase by more than 900%.   

Georgina Crosswell, Head of Marketing for LateRooms.com, said: “Our campaign is a bold new direction for LateRooms.com, giving us real standout against our competitors and giving us cut through at this noisy time of year.

“Initial feedback to the campaign has been really positive and we’ve developed an even stronger tone of voice which is resonating well with the UK audience.”

TVCs ran from 15 November until 13 December, targeted at ABC1 Adults aged between 25 and 54, while further support through Youtube pre-roll ran from 30 November until 25 December.