Holidaymakers love a premium experience for a non-premium price, which is exactly what Secret Escapes promises by filling empty rooms in fancy hotels. In this campaign there’s a friendly lobster thrown in to provide that “pinch me” feeling of arriving in a great holiday destination.
Dog Cat & Mouse, the agency set up by industry veterans including Ian Priest (of VCCP fame) and Jo Tanner (BBH, Saatchi & Saatchi, HHCL), is behind the work.
Steve Stokes, co-founder & planning director at Dog Cat & Mouse, said: “It was thrilling to work with a brand with a heritage of such good comms. This campaign keeps the core brand proposition fresh with surprising, engaging and single-minded creative work.”
Louise Nolder, the chief customer officer at Secret Escapes, said: “We have thousands of customer testimonials telling us they can’t believe the value they get with Secret Escapes, so we wanted to bring that ‘wow’ to life. What better way than a lobsterlady giving you a cheeky pinch to remind you that your dreamy deal is actually a reality? It was great to combine a compelling creative idea with quality AI production, for cost-effective delivery.”
It’s a lively, memorable spot and it makes it’s point well without getting too silly.
MAA creative scale: 7.5
All of the companies going with AI-led graphics are going to regret it. It’s immediately obvious and communicates cheapness and lack of authenticity.
I’ve been a customer of Secret Escapes for a couple of years now, but after seeing their AI advert, I’ll take my business elsewhere. So disappointing!
What better way to deter me from using your service than to use AI! In an ad about holiday destinations no less! At least have the decency to depict real locations, otherwise what am i even buying?
I could not believe what uncanny slop I was seeing on my screen. I can’t imagine why they’d think an add like this would resonate positively with viewers? I’m not going to be using these guys in future. Ever. It’s NOT difficult to come up with and shoot an advert with real people. Come on, this cannot be worth it.
There is nothing about the advert that makes you feel like booking a holiday with Secret Escapes. In fact, it has made me remove them from the list of companies I use for travel experiences. For probably not much more cost they could have created something much more engaging using real people and real locations. Instead they have a weird soulless advert which is likely to damage their reputation. I just don’t know who in the company would have signed that off thinking it was a good thing. Just look at Apples new TV ident, created by real people in a studio vs Cokes slop Christmas ad.
Terrible ad. Using AI to advertise holidays instead of using actual footage of locations you cover is a weird choice. The “people” are disturbing and have that creepy and soulless AI feel. If you want ads to turn people off a product/service, AI is the way to go.