Booking.com has a pretty interesting ad just in time for Halloween. In an effort to promote the fact you can stay in over 350,000 different locations, including some which may or may not be haunted, the site shows what it might be like to stay in a spooky location.
It's kind of disturbing, kind of weird and it's a completely new take on a travel website commercial.
I caught this ad before a movie I was seeing. Shown directly in front of the usual coming attractions, this spot looked like just another trailer for some sort of upcoming horror film. Borrowing some of the angles and sounds from most horror trailers, you'd never suspect this was an ad for Booking.com.
As I've said in the past, the most effective ads are the ones people see without knowing they are being marketed to. Here I and the theater audience was duped into thinking we were seeing a preview for the latest creepy thriller. They had our full attention. The end result was plenty of buzz and a memorable commercial.
