The Most Precious Time Of All

Have you seen the Thomson ad? You must have done. Watch “X Factor” and you can’t miss it, which will probably be why I have. Or had.

The Thomson ad is being given added prominence among the Spanish media for two reasons: one, that Tenerife reckons that it is benefiting from it specifically; two, because Thomson (i.e. TUI) is making as much play as it can out of the travails at Thomas Cook.

The ad is one of the most remarkable pieces of holiday promotion you could wish to see. Unashamedly and gut-wrenchingly sentimental, if it doesn’t move you, then you have no soul. It does everything an advert should do, with an emphasis on playing with the emotions.

Break the ad down and you appreciate just how effective it is. Take the language used. Key words and phrases such as “those close to you”, “share with them”, “cherish”, “the people who mean everything in the world to you”, “holidays are the most precious time of all” make you well up just by reading them; they are the art of a neurolinguistic programmer who has got right inside the heart, head and mind of the audience.

The words are those of a child, just to add greater poignancy to the whole thing, but they are spoken by a child for a hard-nosed reason: children are massively important when it comes to family purchasing decisions and especially where holidays are concerned. Advertisers know this and exploit the fact for all it’s worth.

Then there’s the music, a plaintive reworking of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” with a distinct nod in the direction of Coldplay. It is recognisable without being known.

And finally, there is the imagery: Tenerife, because that’s where the ad was filmed. The island may not be mentioned, but Tenerife is doing all it can to cash in not just in summer but also this winter. Hard luck, Mallorca, the Canaries win again, both because they were the location and because they are open for winter business.

Behind the creativity of the advert, before it was even first worked up and story-boarded, was something much less slushy. BMB (Beattie McGuinness Bungay), the agency which created the ad, was set a “business problem”. From the agency’s website, I quote: “Consumers see little difference between any of the large holiday operators, resulting in low brand preference and attribution”. The “idea” to address this problem was to “remind consumers of the importance of spending quality time with your loved ones and how Thomson truly facilitate this”.

The campaign will end up costing Thomson five million pounds, which equates to over two million euros more than the Balearics have in total for tourism promotion in 2012. But were the tourism ministry to embark on television campaigns in the future, it could learn an awful lot from the Thomson ad.

Look at the business problem again. You can easily substitute “large holiday operators” with “leading holiday destinations”. From this, you can change the idea to “how Mallorca truly facilitates this”.

The advert is generic, not that it has prevented Tenerife from working it to its advantage, but there are important lessons. Firstly, the ad is believable, and this, unlike Mallorcan (Balearics) attempts, is partly because there are no celebrities, which has been a Mallorcan obsession for too long. Secondly, though the imagery of Tenerife is obviously integral, it is also incidental. Shots of landscape and what have you, another usual obsession, do not sell like emotion sells, especially when you want to grab a television audience by the throat.

I have been highly dismissive of adverts such as the Nadal one. They have been ineffective in all sorts of ways, which is why the small promotion spend for 2012 is a blessing in disguise, as it stops the same mistakes being made; mistakes that have centred on a belief that you sell through “place”, which translates as landscape scenes. Yes, you can, but not initially. You sell, most powerfully, through emotion, which is exactly what BMB have done for Thomson. They have taken the simple concept of the family holiday and the simple and familiar representation of the family on holiday and come up with something really rather wonderful.

I am not suggesting that Mallorca should imitate the Thomson ad, even if it had the money to do so, but if an appreciation can be made of the power of emotion then future promotion might just become more effective and might also go some way to demonstrating how Mallorca can truly facilitate the spending of quality time and can differentiate itself from other leading holiday destinations.

 

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Islands In The Stream

Oh for days of yore. Those Boxing Days of old when Fred Pontin would enjoin us to “book early” and the Warners would wander onto the screens looking like a trio of M.J.K. Smiths* grinning cheesily and with embarrassment. Those days of Clarkson – pre-Jeremy – when package holidays cost about a tenner before Clarkson became one of the first great holiday company collapses.

Nowadays there are few holiday companies to choose from, and what few there are make virtues of saturated, high-definition television to whisk the consumer off to azure seas and sandy, palm-lined beaches. And so First Choice and Thomas Cook decorate our holiday dreams with flat-screened exotica, and in the case of Thomas Cook they do so courtesy of … the Redknapps. Yes, everyone, Jamie and Louise, the sub-Beckhams, the under-Coles of football-girl band marital marketing opportunity. No more the Warners, reminiscent of a 60s England cricketer with spectacles. Now we have the aspirations of “Hello”-style froth from waves gently caressing the shore, aimed at Royle Families gathered on the nation’s sofas who would have more in mind the price of a lager and the savings to be made by going all-inclusive.

Why would you go anywhere that the Redknapps go? And if you were to, where – in Mallorca – would it be? A clue lies in an article Louise once penned for “The Mail On Sunday”. Portals Nous. That’s where. Portals Nous, home to the tippy-toppy-stilletoed, brown-wrinkly expat band of shallowness that the daily variety of “The Mail” exposed (even if there was some doubt cast as to the accuracy of that piece). Portals Nous is far removed from the everyday Mallorcan holiday experience, e.g. that of Magaluf, a point Mrs. Redknapp made: “I had a picture in my head that was, well, pretty inaccurate. Everyone has heard of Magaluf, and that’s what I was expecting – a giant concrete resort with mile-upon-mile of tower blocks, noise and chaos”. Jamie and his missus discovered the more “authentic” side of Mallorca – yep, Portals Nous, all luxury yachts and Jimmy Choos.

So when you don’t just book it but Thomas Cook it to Mallorca and admire the Redknapps on golden beaches, it is to Portals Nous that you should be heading. It is to here, the über-celeb locations of the island, that the aspirations of the Thomas Cook Redknapped ad are calling you. Not that you will be able to book anything in Portals, as on the Thomas Cook website there is no mention of the place. Poor old Jamie and Louise. They have set themselves up for a good kicking – one on the shins by lumbering centre halfs in Jamie’s case, or by Danny Baker on his radio show the other day or by one of the authors of http://advertsihate.blogspot.com**: “they (the Redknapps) are just like the sort of people you befriend over sun-parched bacon and eggs at Frank’s Beachside Taverna before regretting it for the remaining thirteen nights”.

‘Arry’s boy and Mrs. R are generic holiday – in Thomas Cook land – but by association they are specific, as in the Cook ad for the Balearics. Here is something that has been exercising some of the good people on the PuertoPollensa.com forum, as apparently the Menorca bit shows Puerto Pollensa. Could have fooled me – from what is streamed via the Cook site – but if eagle-eyed ad watchers make the mismatch it does suggest a certain sloppiness on the part of the production people. Nice one, the chap who spotted it.

* I have this recollection that there were indeed three Warners and that they all looked like the one-time England cricket captain, M.J.K. Smith, a bespectacled and rather gawky fellow. Have tried to find some google evidence of the Warners but none has cropped up.

** This is partly a Manchester journo called David Quinn who also has a site – http://www.wordsdept.co.uk – on which, among other things, you can read about the ten most awful people on television in 2009, one of whom – the number one in fact – is Michael McIntyre. Amen.