Multi-channel advertising campaign reaches millions of consumers

ABTA has reached millions of consumers, built awareness and understanding of the ABTA offering and increased web traffic to ABTA.com with a multi-channel advertising campaign around its new consumer strapline ‘Travel with confidence’. The campaign launched on 28 December and ran until the start of February letting customers know about the benefits of booking with an ABTA Member and explaining ABTA’s offer of support, protection and expertise.

Despite a relatively modest spend, the advertising campaign achieved impressive results: nine out of ten (90%) of people who saw ABTA advertising in the Mail on Sunday stated that they intended to take action as a result* and web traffic to abta.com increased with ABTA’s ‘Find a Member’ page seeing an increase in traffic of 56% compared to the same period last year.

Featuring new creative, the adverts appeared in national titles throughout the January and early February peak holiday booking period, in The Sun, The Sun on Sunday, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Mail and all regional Metro editions as well as The Belfast Telegraph. In total, they reached 3.2 million readers.

Radio advertisements using the new strapline also ran for four days on Heart FM as part of ABTA’s Earlybird campaign (on the benefits of booking early with an ABTA Member) at the end of January. These were heard 5.4 million times. The Earlybird campaign was supported by pay per click advertisements on Twitter, Facebook and Google which were seen by hundreds of thousands of consumers. ABTA also reached 10,000 followers on its Twitter account @ABTAtravel.

As well as the advertising campaign, ABTA has undertaken SEO projects to boost traffic to ABTA.com and introduced a responsive homepage, supporting consumers who seek to verify ABTA Membership or find out more about ABTA on the go. Feedback from ABTA Members shows that mobile functionality is key.

Mark Tanzer, ABTA Chief Executive said: “We are delighted with the success of the campaign and will continue to promote the "Travel with confidence" messaging throughout the year, to add value to the ABTA brand. It is very encouraging that many people say they will take action after seeing the advertisements and this highlights the value to Members of displaying the ABTA logo. We are also pleased to see that ABTA Members have really adopted the new strapline and are displaying it in store, on websites and in advertising campaigns; this is a very exciting time for the ABTA brand.”