Hi Everyone!

Wow, what a Super Bowl! The game was pretty close, and the Saints were able to pull it off in the end. But who am I kidding? I didn’t really give a hoot about the game; I was only watching the commercials.

Did you check out the commercial by HomeAway? I loved it, but you know I am biased.

From my perspective, the commercial was a hit—we achieved our goal of exposing the vacation rental industry to a broad new audience. This year’s Super Bowl became the most watched program in television history, with over 106 million viewers! It even surpassed the previous record holder, the 1983 finale of “M*A*S*H”.

The commercial also got great mentions in media. Here are just a few highlights: 

• USA Today Ad Meter ranked the HomeAway commercial 13 out of 63m
• The Hollywood Reporter found the HomeAway ad to be hilarious
• Stuart Elliott, reporter for the New York Times, felt the HomeAway Griswold commercial “worked”
• TechCrunch mentions companies who incorporated social media into their Super Bowl ad and included HomeAway as a company who did it well
• According to the Allen & Gerritsen’s Meaningful Messages Super Bowl Ad Survey, the HomeAway ad was among the Top Five for inspiring customers to want to try the product, as reported by MarketingDaily.com

As with any advertising campaign, it’s all about reach and frequency. Clearly we nailed the “reach” during the game, but now we’re gearing up for the frequency part. You’ll be seeing HomeAway ads on HGTV, The Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, and The Food Network, just to name a few.

And what about traffic to the site? Yes! We surpassed our expectations for both traffic to the website and inquiries to properties.

Here’s to big success from our first Super Bowl commercial!

Christine