Specific Media Offers Travel Industry New Ways to Reach Consumers
Top five comScore-ranked advertising network helps travel brands make better connections with more than 83 million online leisure travelers
Irvine, Calif. -- October 9, 2007 -- Over the past few years, more consumers have increasingly researched and booked travel online. Web travelers now make up 79 percent of the US travel population and 55 percent of them buy leisure travel online, according to an independent research firm. With thousands of travel-related web pages and sites in its network, Specific Media, the advertising industry's fastest-growing interactive media company, helps many of today's top travel brands tap the thirst for travel adventure and convert online interest into actual purchasing decisions.
"By using Specific Media's unique targeting mix, we've seen an overall increase in lead volume by 200% over an 8-week time period while reducing our overall cost/lead by 34%, which consequently persuades our clients to increase their online marketing spend," said Jill Groebl, Director of Online Marketing at MMG Worldwide. "At the end of the day, Specific Media's approach is founded on their quality customer service and the ability to consistently produce and maximize results."
Travel and tourism related advertising is the ninth largest advertising category in the US, averaging $5.5 billion in spending annually and ranking among the top industries - more than pharmaceuticals and closely following domestic cars and personal care products.1 To succeed, travel brands must learn to appeal to key groups, such as millennial leisure travelers - those between the ages of 18 and 26 - and seniors. Currently, two in five seniors buy travel online; this segment will see continued growth as older boomers start turning 65 in 2010.
However, in spite of the Internet's rising popularity, 83 million online leisure travelers don't find the Web easy to use for planning and buying trips, and fewer travelers are satisfied using digital channels than those using human agents, according to an independent research firm. To improve consumer satisfaction, industry analysts recommend that brands seek to humanize and personalize the digital travel experience, tapping into travelers' emotions and making generally available content more relevant to each individual.
"Each of the demographics has particular characteristics that warrant different ads," said Tim Vanderhook, CEO and co-founder of Specific Media. "Millennial travelers, for example, are willing to pay more for things that they want and are more inclined to try new things, but are still up-and-coming and must balance practicality with travel decisions. That's why accurate demographic targeting is critical, and reaching these audiences with scale is equally important. Specific Media gives travel clients the ability to target desired demographic audiences online with nearly 100% accuracy. Moreover, with the combined size of our Premium Network and anonymous consumer Data Network, we accurately deliver demographic audiences with greater scale than any other network."
About Specific Media
Specific Media, the advertising industry's fastest-growing interactive media company, enables advertisers to target consumers based on demographics, behaviors, geographic locations and/or the contextual relevance of websites visited. Specific Media works with many of the Fortune 500 brands including seven of the top 10 companies. Specific Media's network reaches more than 125 million U.S. consumers monthly. Since 1999, the company has partnered with hundreds of top quality publishers such as: ABC, CBS, FOX, Major League Baseball, Sportsline.com and VIACOM. For additional information, visit www.specificmedia.com
Contact:
Rose Maciejewski / Julia Zamorska
Ruder Finn West
310.882.4002 / 310.882.4007
wellsb@ruderfinn.com /
zamorskaj@ruderfinn.com
Christine Schoultz
Specific Media
949.861.8898
cschoultz@specificmedia.com
1 TNS Media Intelligence press release, "TNS Media Intelligence Reports U.S. Advertising Expenditures Increased 4.1 Percent in 2006," March 13, 2007, as cited in eMarketer.com, "Top 10 US Advertising Categories, Ranked by Spending, 2005 & 2006", http://www.tns-mi.com/news/03132007.htm