TUI Belgium’s rebranding campaign takes flight through a strong partnership with Medialaan - De Persgroep Advertising using Programmatic Guaranteed.
There are few bigger undertakings in marketing than rebranding a global business, and few rebranding campaigns of recent years have been bigger than TUI’s One Brand project. Bringing together the business’s various agency, airline, hotel and other travel assets under a single banner has been a multi-year undertaking, involving numerous subsidiary brands across Europe.
High Quality Reach, at High Speed
For a campaign with such a specific goal, it was necessary to talk to a vast audience in a short period of time, requiring a partner with both huge reach and premium content. So when the time came to rebrand TUI’s business in Belgium, they turned to Programmatic Guaranteed in Google Marketing Platform1. This enabled them to secure placements on some of the region’s most premium content, while benefiting from the speed and efficiency of a programmatic platform. The publisher TUI Belgium elected to work with was Medialaan - De Persgroep Advertising, one of the largest publishers in Belgium.
“We needed to reach audiences fast,” says Kathleen Vandenbulcke, Manager Digital Marketing at TUI. “There was a sense of urgency, so we knew we had to advertise on premium content to ensure that everyone saw the brand change.” Programmatic Guaranteed enables advertisers to use Google Marketing Platform's programmatic tools to buy premium inventory with the reassurance of guaranteed placement, instead of via the traditional auction format. “With Programmatic Guaranteed you don’t have to follow the auction and worry about if you’re going to hit your audience targets. It gives brands the ability to reach their customer at the most relevant time, with the most relevant message, in a premium, brand-safe environment. You have the reassurance of knowing that you will reach your goals,” adds Kathleen.
Premium Ads for Premium Content
According to Bert Velghe, Digital Business Development Manager at Medialaan - De Persgroep Advertising, the advantages of Programmatic Guaranteed for publishers are obvious. “When it comes to Programmatic, we follow advertiser preferences and keep their needs in mind,” says Bert. “We see that more and more advertisers are looking for greater security; they want to know that their goals will be met and have that guarantee, particularly with time-sensitive campaigns. For example, if TUI advertises a particular product for a particular holiday period, they need to be sure that their audience will be reached within that time frame.”
In addition to simplifying the task of identifying and completing guaranteed deals for premium content, both TUI and Medialaan - De Persgroep Advertising recognise several additional benefits to Programmatic Guaranteed. Publishers have the reassurance of knowing exactly whose advertising is running on their content, and of knowing the exact revenue their content will earn. In turn, this increases the level of trust between publishers and advertisers, allowing for more involved advertising opportunities, such as Homepage Takeovers and other innovative formats that would not be possible through the open auction.
Strong Results & Strong Partnerships
Looking back at the performance of TUI’s Programmatic Guaranteed activity with Medialaan - De Persgroep Advertising reveals some impressive numbers. Across two campaign phases, before and after the rebranding, Programmatic Guaranteed resulted in Viewability increases of more than 30%, increases in Viewable Time of as much as 55%, and substantial decreases in Cost per Acquisition and Cost per Click of 66% and 38% respectively, compared with previous non-Programmatic Guaranteed performance (1). Likewise, from Medialaan - De Persgroep Advertising’s perspective, the campaign was also a success, outperforming equivalent previous direct sales.
Bert Velghe of Medialaan - De Persgroep Advertising sees a bright future for Programmatic Guaranteed as part of his organisation’s ad offering. “Some goals cannot be achieved with Open Auction solutions. Marketers are already realizing this, so Programmatic Guaranteed can only grow from here,” he says. “For us there is an added benefit, as when we test innovative approaches with an advertising partner, it creates a preferential relationship that should help us continue to do business together in a constructive and open-minded way.”
Nicolas Elshout, Digital Marketeer at TUI also sees plenty to build on from the Programmatic Guaranteed rebranding campaigns. “Now we’ve seen the effectiveness of Programmatic Guaranteed, we’re interested to start looking at how we might use it to claim key moments during the year, such as summer launches and last minute campaigns. If we can then layer on targeting data to this type of campaign, we’ll have even more options to reach our most relevant audience.”