Hotels.com signs agreement to "Hotel Deals on Demand," a Video-on-Demand advertising program through the Comcast network

Posted by Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP in Breaking News on December 12, 2010  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter |

This deal between Hotels.com, Comcast and Liquidus "is the first of its kind to leverage telescoping technology that enables consumers to view a traditional television commercial and then click their remote to take them directly into rich on-demand content to learn more about travel destination deals" as reported by Yahoo! Finance.

"Hotel Deals on Demand" is a video-on-demand advertising program distributed through the Comcast network and produced by Liquidus' video on demand (VOD) technology. The "Hotel Deals on Demand" program was trialed for six months over the Spring and Summer with great success. Consumer engagement indicated strong with an average of 2.8 minutes per movie of Hotel Deals on Demand.

Todd Holmes, CEO of Liquidus said:

"When customers can relax in front of their TV and literally tour a prospective hotel property on a large screen, rather than either flipping through tour books or viewing photo stills online, consumer engagement and interest is increased dramatically. Video On Demand presents an incredibly effective way to merchandise properties and is a powerful new opportunity for travel marketing."

Kevin Smith, Group Vice President, Integrated Media Sales at Comcast Spotlight said:

"The hospitality industry is poised to benefit handsomely thanks to the new video capabilities available through on demand television. Savvy advertisers like Hotels.com are seeing the opportunity that new interactive TV capabilities offer. They're launching programs that deliver sales today, while looking forward to the interactive capabilities they can offer consumers in the near future to further interact with their brands, such as requesting information or transacting through the TV with a click of the remote."

How it Works

The telescoping technology is embedded into traditional commercials and allows viewers to "click through" using their television remote to access more information. Upon activation consumers "telescope" from the traditional 30-second commercials directly into the Hotel Deals On Demand content. Hotel Deals On Demand will also be promoted through iGuide advertisements that scroll on the bottom of the Comcast programming guide. These ads also telescope directly into the Hotel Deals On Demand program.

Liquidus' proprietary on demand technology produces promotional video from existing still images and data. Advertisers do not need to invest in costly video production, and as a result, they can quickly and inexpensively offer video for entire property lines on a turn-key basis. Working with Comcast and other cable operators, advertisers can easily pick and choose the markets they want to target.

Travel marketing on a ten foot experience

This development is certainly encouraging for the travel industry which has been said to be too much focused on price as a key differentiator and too less focus on value enhancements and the travel experience. "The key challenge, experts said, is to get consumers focused less on rock-bottom prices and more on value" as correctly described by HotelMarketing.

The innovation by Hotels.com (and their partners) to research and deploy a VOD strategy exactly reacts on the abovementioned quote and it will be definately interesting to see what other OTA's will do to react to this innovative strategy.