“It matters who you travel with” falls on shoulders of new brand custodian, Shiv Singh
SHIV Singh, the new senior vice president and general manager of Brand Expedia, was sitting in front of an impressively-stacked bookcase when I spoke to him on Zoom. I had to ask, “Is that fake or are those real books?”
You never know for sure on the Internet and he is after all the co-author of “Savvy – Navigating Fake Companies, Fake Leaders and Fake News”, which won a gold medal at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. “No,” he laughed, “these are real books but I can’t say I have read them all.”
Singh, who joined Expedia on December 15 last year, is the new face picked to lead this fresh chapter in Expedia’s brand history. Twenty five years ago, the OTA was created out of the idea that the “green screen” facing travel agents should be flipped to face the consumer to enable them to book travel in a click, not the brick.
On April 19, with its new brand promise of “it matters who you travel with”, Expedia is flipping the screen back to embrace all the tenets of a traditional travel agency model – to be a traveller’s companion, to hand-hold the customer through all the steps of the trip using a mix of data, AI and chatbots.
“Without a doubt, when Expedia was established 25 years ago, it democratised travel but now we recognise we can and should do more to support travellers. The technology is advanced now, it’s not a green screen anymore, it’s about the app experience,” said Singh.
Coincidentally, he’s reading the book “The Twilight of Democracy” by Anne Applebaum and so I asked, “Is this the twilight of democracy in travel then?” After all, in recent years, travel has become increasingly dominated by tech giants, just as our everyday lives have been.
Said Singh, “If anything, it’s even more enhanced democracy – it’s putting control in the hands of travellers, in service of them, as and when they need support.”
An experienced marketer with brands such as Eargo, Visa, PepsiCo and Razorfish, (he also authored Social Media Marketing for Dummies, which has been translated into six languages and is now in its fourth edition), Singh said it was his great opportunity to “work with an amazing team, work on a globally recognised brand like Expedia, a powerful brand that people care about as we come out of Covid.
“We took travel for granted but now that we know we can’t travel as freely, we are more conscious and there’s a new found appreciation for the joys of travel and how it is a force for good. It led us to recognise that we do have a bigger role to play in our customers’ lives,” he said. “Before we were all about the point of purchase but so much of it happens after that, and we want to support our customers every step of the way.”
Handholding the customer through the different stages
Unpacking that, it means hand-holding the customer through:
• Everything in one place – a new itinerary experience allowing travellers to see all the details of their trip, a “keep planning” feature that plays back recent searches as well as recent bookings, and soon, a new package offering that will provide ‘pre-bundled products’ (flights + accommodation + activities) with upfront total pricing.
“We are harnessing all the incredible data we have, and putting it into our AI engine and surfacing what you need at a given moment. What’s the most perfect trip for you?”
• Support – Insurance & Cancellations & Chat
- Easy to understand insurance offerings, Singh said, “It sounds simplistic but the simple is often ignored. We will put it in digestible and understandable language and they can file through the app.”
- Easy to cancel or easy to ask virtual agents. “We’ve invested a lot in chatbots, and are rolling out new features. We know it works and we know people want it.”
• Maximising each trip
Loyalty – On April 19 it will flip the switch to enrol the 25m Expedia customers who weren’t enrolled in the Expedia Rewards programme so that they can start earning points. It will be introducing additional benefits to the loyalty programme. “That’s something else we learnt in our research, a lot of travellers didn’t understand how our rewards worked. This is the start of a journey, we will be rolling out more functionality in loyalty,” he said.
Shopping – a new flight experience to provide travellers with a clear view of their flight options and the ability to shop by lodging amenities – a first for the travel industry.
The making of the new Expedia experience
To get to this moment, and following travel’s “moment of reckoning” brought on by Covid, Expedia conducted extensive customer research and what it found among its core customers was “they wanted to maximise on their experience, they weren’t looking for the cheapest deal, but the best holistic great trip”, said Singh.
“Conversations began on what do we want the future to look like.” The team drew up a product road map and for the first time, marketing and product worked together closer than they’ve ever done to bring everything together, “to create a traveller-centric experience”.
Asked if it would consider a subscription model, which might lend to being a “traveller’s companion” such as what TripAdvisor is doing, Singh said, “Every day we evaluate all the different business models, and have nothing to announce now. When we say we are moving from transactions to being a traveller’s companion, we still want those transactions – that’s our business – but we will get more transactions by having a deeper relationship with customers and supporting them every step of the way.”
New campaign will roll out in Asia “when the time is right”, brand promise “forces us to be local”
Expedia’s new global creative, supported by the brand’s largest marketing spend in more than five years, will be launched in Asia “when travel is picking up and when people are primed to hear the message”, said Singh.
There is no doubt that Expedia’s business in Asia has been hugely impacted by Covid. A big part of its market was cross-border travel and outbound and the team has been sharply reduced over the course of the year.
Singh said, “We are massively committed to Asia. On a personal note, I am Indian and I care about Asia. In normal times, I travel there three to four times a year. Our business is directly tied to the Covid trend lines and what air corridors are closed, there’s nothing unique and extra special to us that determines how any travel company is doing.”
The campaign will first launch in the US, given that’s the market that CEO Peter Kern has said that “travellers will be roaring back by summer”. Using a singular creative platform and the new tagline “It matters who you travel with”, the campaign will position Expedia as the ultimate travel companion. The US film creative will feature American actor, writer, director and producer, Rashida Jones (see below), and the UK spot will feature English actor Naomie Harris.
No personality choices have yet been made for the campaign in Asia, said Singh.
Asked if the new “traveller’s companion” promise would work as easily in a fragmented market like Asia, he said, “The fragmentation raises the bar for us internally. By definition, we have to become more personal, more local, more specific. It forces us to think more locally and you can’t be the ultimate companion if you are sitting halfway round the world. It requires us to think how we roll out the brand promise, this is a multi-year journey.”
Singh’s background as an author should hold him in good stead in this multi-year journey. With his first book “Social Media Marketing For Dummies”, he said, “Understanding how the social media ecosystem works helps me in my day job every day. It gives me a much richer perspective on how to engage with travellers from the point where they get inspired by what they consume in social media to when they return from their holidays only to chronicle the trips on the very same platforms.”
And through the course of researching the second book, “Savvy – Navigating Fake Companies, Fake Leaders & Fake News in the Post-Trust Era”, he said, “I developed a much deeper perspective on how people trust and what kinds of information they depend on to make decisions. Arguably, this second book has made me a much more curious and consumer-insight driven business leader which is essential for what I do every day. As we take the Expedia brand forward, building sincere, trusted and confident relationships with our consumers, within my teams and among business partners matters immensely.”
• Images credit: Expedia
