Connected TV

Ad Romance: How to Turn a Summer Fling Into a Lifelong Customer

MNTN and Adweek discuss how brands can build brand loyalty during the biggest summer in years.

Ad Romance: How to Turn a Summer Fling Into a Lifelong Customer

4 Min Read

This summer has brought the heat for marketers in travel, tourism, and experiential brands, as consumers are making more travel plans and attending more live experiences than they have in years. For many brands, it’s much-needed relief – but they may also find themselves unprepared for the golden opportunity at their doorstep.

To help brands knock it out of the park this summer, MNTN’s Director of Customer Success, Mike Scalise, chatted with Adweek about how advertisers can strike while the iron – and temps – are hot. From what strategies need to be revisited, what pandemic-era tactics need to be unlearned, and what new technologies have emerged since before COVID, Scalise outlined a game plan for brands to make a summer to remember. If you missed it, a recording of the webinar can be found here—or you can keep reading for a high-level view of some of the insights shared.

The Rise of Revenge Travel

“I know there have been talks of this looming, global recession and where the world’s heading, but right now, what we’re seeing this summer for experiential brands, is that there is no slowdown – quite the opposite,” noted Scalise. With $95 billion expected in summer travel and 85% of adults interested in traveling this summer, brands in the tourism, travel, and experiential verticals are seeing a return to 2019 levels of activity.

“This is a new opportunity for brands to get in front of consumers for the first time,” commented Scalise. “People are itching – desperate – to travel again.” Scalise pointed to a recent article that highlighted the “revenge travel” craze, which sees consumers eager to get out and enjoy life again after years of a pandemic and lockdown. These consumers will be forming new buying habits, making lifelong positive associations with the brands they encounter, and building brand loyalty. “I think it’s a really big opportunity for brands to be a part of that, and introducing – or reintroducing – themselves to consumers,” said Scalise. “One summer interaction could make the next lifelong customer.”

All-Star Strategies from the Atlanta Hawks

With its audio-visual format and ability to tap into FOMO, Connected TV opens a window to the outside world for would-be travelers – and is at the center of advertiser strategies this summer. Its audience-first approach always finds the right viewer, regardless of what they’re watching, and its ability to geotarget consumers and refresh creative quickly gives advertisers unique opportunities to rethink television advertising. To give a real-world example of these features, Scalise referred to how the NBA team the Atlanta Hawks launched a campaign with MNTN Performance TV.

“What [the Hawks] did was deploy two different ads that used timely call-to-actions like ‘buy tickets now.’ Each follow-up message was templatized so the team could update dates and opponents easily,” said Scalise. “Additionally, they used Oracle’s Data Cloud in the Performance TV platform to target ‘sports-loving’ and ‘live-events-going’ segments of the Georgia area. So how they’d do? They saw a 24% increase in site visits and a 7x increase in ROAS.” All of this would not be possible without the geotargeting and dynamic creative strategy that CTV affords brands – and Scalise later gave examples of how tourism, travel, or experiential brands could apply these strategies.  

Looking Ahead to the Fall and Beyond

At the end of the presentation, Scalise had a chance to field some audience questions during the live Q&A. “As you point out, summer 2022 is unique – we’ve all been in this pandemic mode of thinking and there might be some things to unlearn,” said Adweek’s host, Danielle Moore. “How can travel, tourism, or experiential brands apply these tactics to fall and winter campaigns as we look ahead to the next few seasons?”

 “The good thing is these lessons aren’t specific to summer, but to the seasonality changes you might experience. One thing that’s interesting to think about is running the same creative through summer and continuing it into fall and winter – but that creative has a beach feel and people outdoors. [Consumers watching from Chicago] might see this and feel a little disconnected from the message. Having the ability to be nimble with creative and change it easily is crucial,” said Scalise. “The same learnings about changing creative and adapting can still be applied no matter what the season is.”  

Watch the Full Webinar for More

Scalise had a lot more to cover with Adweek, including more in-depth strategies for brands and fascinating Q&As from advertisers in the audience. To watch a full complimentary recording of the webinar, click here.