Booking.com Super Bowl Ad Features Melissa McCarthy To Reinforce Brand Positioning

Following on last year’s Super Bowl ad featuring Idris Elba, Booking.com is back for 2023. This year’s ad focused on the joy of traveling and reinforces the brand’s position as a digital app that makes booking a vacation fun, easy and reliable while offering a wide range of choices. Melissa McCarthy stars in ad and continues the Booking.yeah campaign for which “Somewhere Anywhere” is that mantra of the new campaign.

I interviewed Arjan Dijk, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Booking.com and asked him about the brand’s goals for this year’s Super Bowl ad. “Our mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, “he says, “The aim of the campaign is to showcase how easy Booking.com is to use and that we are the reliable and fun platform to book a trip, no matter where travelers want to go. Focusing on product offerings is indeed important to us to differentiate ourselves in the competitive U.S. market, which is why you’ll see the ad feature things like wide choice of places to stay – from hotels to vacation rentals – as well as our app prominently featured, which was the #1 most downloaded online travel app in the U.S. in 2022 according to Apptopia.”

Dijk further notes that the campaign focuses on the creation of a “Booking.yeah” feeling for customers that lasts from when they start exploring and searching for hotels/homes/properties all the way through hitting the “book button” and then anticipating and enjoying the trip itself.

Last year’s Super Bowl ad produced impressive results for the brand, with increases in awareness and bottom line sales, so making the $7 million investment in another Super Bowl ad made sense. Dijk states, “Last year’s big game was the ideal time to relaunch our Booking.yeah campaign in a big way with our first ever Super Bowl ad. The year-long campaign contributed to accelerated brand growth and awareness, making us one of the first travel brands U.S. consumers think of, evident by the U.S. having almost 30% room night growth in Q3 2022 vs. Q3 2019 across all Booking Holdings brands, including Booking.com, the largest brand in the group, as well as Booking.com being the #1 most downloaded online travel app in all the U.S. in 2022 according to Apptopia.”

The ad’s tone is similar in to that of many of this year’s Super Bowl ad, being “carefree, comedic and fun,” as Dijk puts it. He believes that ad will resonate with Americans, “as it conveys that we don’t take ourselves as a brand too seriously, though we do take our business seriously, with the aim being to inspire confidence that one has found exactly what they are looking for on Booking.com and that it was easy to book a trip.”

Dijk elaborates on how McCarthy’s widespread appeal made her a logical choice to appear in the ad. “Melissa’s sense of humor really aligns with Booking.com’s humor and her charming, genuine, approachable, authentic personality make her relatable to American audiences as a brand spokesperson they can trust,” he observes, “At Booking.com, we take our business seriously, but not ourselves very seriously, which led to a perfect creative collaboration with Melissa who is a comedic star that takes her work seriously to get laughs and entertain audiences with funny content and messaging that sticks with the viewer. Travel is supposed to be fun and we wanted to ensure that was reflected in the creative, which Melissa truly helped bring to life.” He also notes that McCarthy enjoys traveling and used the Booking.com app to book her latest trip herself to a location that is revealed in the ad.

In conjunction with the campaign, Booking.com will give away half a million dollars in vacation funds, with to those participating in a social media activity on Instagram or TikTok, with winners receiving $10,000 each in travel credits. Dijk’s says the rationale for the social media giveaway is that it, “…is a part of our larger integrated campaign that will leverage multiple marketing channels. As a brand for everyone, we need to be present across all channels that capture our audience’s attention, which social media is of course very much part of that strategy,” noting that to enter, “You just have to follow @bookingcom on Instagram or TikTok and leave a comment on any Booking.com giveaway post noting the “Somewhere, Anywhere” you want to go using #ShareYourAnywhere.”

Overall, the ad does an effective brand of building top of mind awareness and reinforcing Booking.com’s positioning using a lighthearted, humorous approach.