It being 1.45am in the morning and nothing else to do but to go to bed, I decided to watch Wego’s new commercials on YouTube – six of them back-to-back takes 2 mins 15 seconds, I had been told by CEO Ross Veitch.
It’s the first of a series of television and YouTube commercials the travel search site is launching across the region to build its brand among consumers. Its first market is Indonesia and there are six versions targetted at business travellers, women shoppers, romance-seekers, groups of friends and families. 
They all carry the same message essentially saying, use Wego to get the best prices, communicating the benefits of the travel metasearch model and its all-inclusive ability to display online travel agent rates, as well as direct airline and hotel rates.
They are of course in Indonesian and use local slang – OMG interspersed with colloqualisms – so you can see Wego is trying to say, “We are one of you, we know the local speak.”
The talent is a bit stiff, especially the business traveller, perhaps it’s deliberate; the guy dreaming of a romantic getaway is rather cute in a nerdy way; I like the girl dreaming of shopping best perhaps it speaks to me – but I can imagine the commercials would go down well in the Indonesian market – it’s quirky, fun and trendy.
The plan is to run the commercials in Indonesia for a period of three months and then extend broadcast advertising to Wego’s other core markets.
“We understand how personal travel is to each individual, and the reasons for taking a trip differ dramatically from traveller to traveller,” said Joachim Holte, Chief Marketing Officer for Wego.
Joachim Holte: Humour to tell the story.
“We’ve allocated a great deal of resources in developing Wego to meet those very personal needs as the most intuitive and comprehensive method of finding the best airfares and hotel rates online, and felt it was time to introduce our brand to broader audiences through television and YouTube to reinforce that understanding.”
Holte said that delivering the Wego message with a touch of humour “reinforces our real-person approach that we cultivate in all our communications as well as our product”.
“We want people to know that we understand the catalyst behind travel intentions differs for each person, whether they travel for family holidays, last minute business trips, or even a romantic escape.”
Indonesia was selected as the first market to introduce the campaign because “Indonesians have overwhelmingly adopted Wego as their preferred method of travel planning”. “Jakarta was one of Wego’s first locations outside of Singapore headquarters where we established a regional office. Indonesia also has a rapidly developing smartphone market who are travelling more and more frequently and enjoying the convenience of our travel app .”
“The addition of TV and online video is an extension of Wego’s investment to inspire and engage with travellers so they can continue to save time, pay less and travel more. We look forward to sharing that message with more markets in the near future,” Holte concluded.
The series of commercials from Wego can be viewed here.
