Last year, several travel brands bet big on the Super Bowl with Turkish Airlines, Expedia and Booking.com splurging on national in-game ads in an effort to boost market share.

This year, however, the landscape looks different. As consumers grapple with rising prices on everyday essentials, leisure travel is facing a slowdown. Most players in the category are foregoing a nearly $7 million Super Bowl media buy in favor of a more measured marketing approach to the Big Game. To date, only one travel brand—Booking.com—has confirmed an ad buy in the Feb. 12 game, and Turkish and Expedia have confirmed they are out. While more travel brands could still jump in, experts are suggesting the investment might not be worth the cost this year.

“It doesn’t make for an efficient spend for most travel brands,” said Craig Compagnone, president and chief operating officer of travel marketing firm MMGY Global, specifying the hefty price tag associated with a 30-second spot. “There is a travel industry now more focused on segmentation and driving very specific markets because of the softness in leisure demand.”

Of course, not buying national airtime in the Feb. 12 game on Fox doesn’t mean travel brands are pulling back on overall advertising—quite the contrary. Most data reveals that media spend remains on the rise, following the pandemic plummets of 2020 and early 2021. In November, travel advertisers spent 30% more than in November 2021 on U.S media bookings, including TV, digital, OTT, out-of-home, print and radio, according to ad spend data compiled by Standard Media Index. The jump represents the best year on record since 2017, and follows a 9% year-over-year gain in October.

In particular, TV spending is on the rise. Travel brands spent $105.6 million on TV in December, a 49% uptick over the year-earlier period, and with a spend of $89 million during the first 20 days of the current month, were also on track to exceed January 2022 numbers as well, ad measurement firm iSpot.tv found.

“There’s a lot of headwinds—the impending recession and inflation, the war in Ukraine,” said Lorraine Sileo, senior analyst at Phocuswright, a travel and hospitality research firm, noting that there are also some positives such as reopened borders with China. “There’s an expectation that pent-up demand will continue through 2023 but at a much slower pace—you’re not going to see that double-digit growth [of 2022].”

Chasing the waterfall

Some travel and tourism brands—including Alaska Airlines and Priceline—are skipping national Super Bowl ad buys in favor of a more targeted approach, including regional buys, pre-and post-game spots, brand partnerships and market activations. Compagnone dubbed this as tapping into the “waterfall effect” of the Big Game, in a reference to the massive amount of attention it gets.

“The travel industry at its core is finding more targeted, less cost prohibitive methods in advertising and marketing more broadly, but specifically around the Super Bowl,” Compagnone said.

Booking.com is returning to the Super Bowl for the second year in a row in continuation of its Booking.yeah campaign. The online travel agency, which is owned by Booking Holdings and counts Kayak, Priceline and Open Table as sibling brands, will work with creative agency Zulu Alpha Kilo for the first time. While online travel agencies such as rival Expedia are well known in the U.S., Booking.com, which started in Europe, has to play catch-up here. Booking Holdings Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer David Goulden spoke about this recently at an investor conference.

“In the U.S., we still recognize, whilst we're gaining lots of share, we have some brand awareness [to] try and build,” he said, according to a transcript, noting that the brand is now spending more on awareness marketing in the U.S. than it has historically. He also said that last year’s Super Bowl spot, which starred actor Idris Elba and heralded a yearlong campaign, generated “decent” results in terms of awareness and financials.

“For them to continue brand-building for a U.S. audience might make sense,” said Sileo about Booking.com’s Super Bowl spot.  

However, the majority of rival brands appear to not be taking the plunge. Airbnb, which has appeared in prior games, is sitting out this year’s event. Expedia also confirmed it will not air commercials, as did a spokeswoman for Turkish Airlines. Priceline, which is owned by Booking Holdings, confirmed it will air a pregame Super Bowl commercial.

Part of the reticence may come from the sector’s expected consumer slowdown. A seasonal survey from MMGY,  released in December, found that 58% of U.S. adults planned to take a vacation within the next six months, down from 63% in September. A bevy of airline delays and cancellations over the holidays, including Southwest Airlines’ storm-related issues and the FAA system failure, may contribute to consumers’ reluctance as well. Southwest has attempted to win back consumers with discounts and refunds—but a Super Bowl won't be a part of that messaging, a representative recently confirmed to Ad Age. 

Creative planning

Carnival Cruise Line, which has been spending aggressively on marketing, is planning to air a family-focused spot during the game on Fox’s app, which will stream the game, according to a Carnival spokeswoman. The spot is part of Carnival's “Choose Fun Together” brand campaign that debuted on Dec. 25. Carnival wants to capitalize on “wave season,” which runs from January through March and is considered a key booking time for the cruise industry. 

Alaska Airlines will take a regional approach to the Big Game—similar to what the brand did last year, according to Eric Edge, managing director of advertising and marketing. The airline will air an ad touting its Visa credit card featuring celebrity fashion expert Tan France in the Seattle area, along with a brand commercial from its “Care Coalition” campaign in California.

Edge noted that by placing buys in its California and Seattle key markets, Alaska Airlines is fostering better connections with its loyal customer base.

“As we looked at it, we said, ‘Does it really make sense to focus in on a whatever-the-price-is-now national spot or as the only national airline based on the West Coast, do we want to lean into our home on the West Coast?’” he said.

Some brands are also looking at activations to get in on the Super Bowl action. Marriott will be again running its “Super Bowl Sleepover” which awards a contest winner an overnight stay inside the Glendale, Arizona, stadium where the Super Bowl will be played the night before the Big Game. The suite will be repurposed into a guest room. After the game, Marriott will run a contest on social media for draft tickets.

Arizona’s tourism agency does not plan to sit idle as this year’s game comes to its turf. The Arizona Office of Tourism plans to promote its state at several Super Bowl LVII events, according to Debbie Johnson, director at AOT. The organization will also run social media messaging around Visit Arizona on its owned channels, she said. For last year's game, which was played in Inglewood, California, that state's tourism agency, Visit California, ran regional ads during the telecast of the game.

“While we are not directly purchasing Super Bowl ads, we strongly support the event and are adjusting some specific tactics in our ongoing domestic tourism promotion campaign to encourage exploration of our state,” Johnson said.