Portfolio

Hotels 4U

• TV & Video Production
• Digital Marketing
• Branding/Positioning
• Advertising
• Animation

Background:

Hotels4U.com is an independent website owned by Thomas Cook that takes away the headache of booking hotels, apartments, villas and transfers for independently minded customers. We were asked to produce a series of bumpers for their sponsorship of ITV1's new comedy travelogue Monte Carlo or Bust!

Challenge:

This project had an extremely tight turnaround and so speed was of the essence. Hotels4U only had a matter of days from briefing us to TV deadline in order to get them aired on prime time ITV1! But that was obviously no excuse for scrimping strategically.

Solution:

Research first. The programme, the inspiration for the programme, the likely target audience, and the best way to get through to them. We then developed a strategy to increase all types of recall for the brand, and make the best use of the few seconds available, within strict guidelines for producing sponsorship ads.

Milton Bayer designed and built the bumpers around an animated character called Harry who we follow as he goes on a whistle stop tour of the world to promote a range of Hotels4U.com seasonal hotel breaks. He discovers how easy it is to change his environment immediately from ski to city to beach hotel. Our unifying campaign concept of 'wherever you're going' promotes the breadth of Hotels4U.com's product offering. They were fully animated at MB using Cinema4D and After Effects, and we drafted in excellent voice-over artist Guy Harris to be the voice.

Results:

Working day and night we produced, converted to DigiBeta and delivered to ITV in just over a week from approval of the storyboard!

The result is a snappy series of bumpers which not only encourage you to remember the advert, but remember the Hotels4U.com brand, as a visual logo, a set of colours associated with it, and a soundbyte. The creative has been extended for online applications with banners carrying the new creative on Hotels4U.com and has spread through social media too.

Watch them now: www.youtube.com/miltonbayer