First review of the HomeAway Super Bowl ad Hotel Hell Vacation featuring Chevy Chase

My wife and I just watched the 30 second spot and the full 7 minute movie, and then discussed it. I run Second Porch, the new way to find rentals from friends, personal contacts and colleagues, and she runs OnlineVacationRentals.com, a growing cost per click based vacation rental site that has been around since 2001, and we have a variety of other experiences including owning a vacation rental on Mount Hood. So we feel like we know the industry pretty intimately. In addition, I have been a marketing executive for 20 plus years, so I know the marketing side pretty well too.

Here is what I liked:
- I appreciate the fact that HomeAway went for it with this Super Bowl ad. It was bold, a ton of work, extremely expensive, and the ultimate marketing move. I am sure they will get back the investment value from the press coverage alone. I love the fact that our vacation rental businesses will benefit, as will every other one. They are doing a great job leading here.
- The creative concept is brilliant. We are huge Chevy Chase fans, watch “Christmas Vacation” every single Thanksgiving night to kick off the Christmas season. “Hotel Hell” is succinct and sums up the movie in two words, every marketers dream.
- The campaign is integrated and sustained. They are not just running one spot, and hoping for a miracle. They understand the way this needs to work, over a long period of time, with lots of impressions. They have, what looks to be, a nice video game too, integrated into the Hotel Hell microsite.
- There were some real laughs: the egg scene, and the voicemail gag at checkout had us chuckling out loud.

Here is what didn’t work:
- I didn’t calculate the exact ratio of time spent bashing the hotel, versus time spent showing how great vacation rentals can be, but from memory it was about 90% about them experiencing the Hotel Hell and 10% showing them at the vacation rental. I understand why, since Chevy Chase is a pratfall actor, who is funniest when things are going bad and that only happens in their Hotel Hell experience. Some of the hotel bits were really exaggerated not actually that common, and too slow paced.
- Most of it just wasn’t that funny. They tried to work in the old movie references too much. I think they could have pushed the envelope a bit more, and found funnier things in the hotels that are relevant to many of us, more than the towel upgrade, the low ceilings, the lack of room service, and no dining alternatives in the area. These are things that I have not really had major issues with in my hundreds of nights in hotels traveling with the family and on business.
- The premise of them making the wrong decision to stay in a hotel when it was just the two of them is somewhat flawed. While I am on a personal mission, as we build the Second Porch business, to not stay in a hotel, there are certain scenarios that do make sense. Given that it was just one night, the fact that they were merely doing an “on the road stopover” and the fact that it was just the two of them, a hotel made sense… they just picked the wrong hotel. They would have been better off showing them trying to stay in a hotel on a family trip with Rusty and the kids, or even just the granparents and the grandkids. Then they could have easily shown how that was a terrible choice versus choosing a spacious vacation rental home. Vacation rentals make sense for 2 or more nights, and especially for 4 or more people. Two people, one night, stopover en route to somewhere else? A hotel works.
- My biggest disappointment was in how weakly they portrayed the strengths of the vacation rental experience. They quickly walked through the kitchen, skimmed the living room and went onto the deck. They spent more time focusing on the view and the beach than conveying why vacation rental homes are so superior. While many are beachfront , many vacation homes simply don’t have killer views, but make up for it in so many other ways.  I won’t bore you with all of the ideas I have for this, and how they could have made them funny, but there were options. I am not saying they made the vacation rental look bad, they just didn’t convey the core asset–which is all of the space to spread out in, multiple bathrooms, oftentimes separate hang out areas for kids and adults, and the vacation home owner’s personal touches that you never see in a hotel–even a decent hotel.

So again, I am very happy this ad is running and appreciate HomeAway giving this level of exposure for our fast growing industry. I respect HomeAway and how they are executing their growth. We list our own vacation rental home on VRBO, and have it integrated into our Second Porch listing in a couple ways. I just think communicating when a vacation rental home is such a smarter choice than a hotel could have come off better, and wish that message would have resonated more. The spot was too focused on hotel bashing, than on vacation rental home showcasing. I surmise that it was the expensive cast and licensing rights from Universal Pictures, and the pressure for humor to really perform on the Super Bowl ad arena that led the way here. Perhaps the next round will get these core messages out there more successfully.

p.s. For grins and high contrast, check out the video my 6 and 11 year old kids made for our Second Porch Super Bowl ad….anyone got the $3 million media cost we need?

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