MakeMyTrip, or MMT, is one of India’s most prominent travel booking platforms, probably the one that set the innovative advertising campaign styles that have since changed travel marketing in the country. The ad strategies encompass a broad spectrum, serving flight and hotel bookings, vacation packages, and activities, thereby triggering appeal to diverse travel cohorts in India. The brand employs a mixed media campaign and strategic celebrity associations to engage with audiences and inspire them to travel. This guide delves deeply into advertising methods, identification of platforms, marketer messages, and the targeting tactics that MakeMyTrip Ads applies to keep itself ahead in the Indian travel market.
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MakeMyTrip’s Advertising Goals and Core Strategies
The advertising campaigns of MakeMyTrip are set with certain goals in mind, mainly focusing on broad areas of objective:
- Brand Awareness: Keeping at the forefront, MMT must establish the online travel booking platform as the best known by travelers in India. Through ad campaigns, brand recall is mostly reinforced.
- Customer Acquisition: Having distinct deals and discount-based ads encourages new users to either download the mobile app or sign up on MMT, thus expanding its customer base.
- Increasing Direct Bookings: This is a core strategy wherein MMT focuses on promoting bookings through the website and mobile applications in a highly competitive OTA market.
- Promoting Domestic Tourism: MMT has a promoting campaign that patriotically encourages Indian tourists to travel within India itself. This is implemented during peak travel seasons and festive seasons.
Key Platforms and Channels for MakeMyTrip Ads
MakeMyTrip adopts an omnichannel approach for advertising that combines digital with conventional media for a wider reach. Below is an insight into the major platforms MMT leverages:
Television Advertising
Television has played a vital role in the MakeMyTrip brand-building, particularly in reaching a vast audience across India. The brand frequently uses TV ads, particularly featuring Bollywood stars, to capture prime-time audience attention.
- Reach and Engagement: TV ads for MMT allow them to reach family audiences and middle-aged travelers who may be prone to being less active on digital platforms.
- Strategic Timing: MMT carries out their TV campaigns during popular peak seasons: summer vacations and Indian festivals maximize reach when travel planning is high.
Related: TripAdvisor Ads
Social Media Advertising
MakeMyTrip leverages platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to engage users with highly targeted ads, often segmented based on interest, geographical location, and demographics.
- Carousel Ads on Facebook and Instagram: Carousel ads are a format that enables MMT to showcase multiple destinations or offers within a single advertisement. This advertising format grabs the attention of the users as they scroll.
- Stories and Video Ads: MakeMyTrip runs short video ads and Instagram Stories full of spectacular visuals that showcase exotic destinations, limited-time offers, and special deals appealing to youthful travellers.
- Influencer Collaborations: By collaborating with travel influencers, MMT is able to reach niche segments while inspiring aspirational travel content influence. Influencers showcase MMT’s offers organically, creating authentic engagement.
YouTube Video Campaigns
YouTube is another important channel for MakeMyTrip. MMT targets travel, lifestyle, and leisure audiences through video ads.
- YouTube TrueView Ads: TrueView ads allow MMT to pay only when a user watches beyond the skip option, thus making it an economical choice. This type of ad is typically a storytelling video that focuses on directing to destinations, promoting special offers, or detailing new features in the platform.
- Short, Visual Ads for Destination Marketing: For campaigns targeted at specific destinations, MMT runs 15-second ads on YouTube that capture the heart of a place and drive users to book using their platform.
Google Ads and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
MakeMyTrip deployed a series of Google search and display ads targeting high-intent travellers on a quest for specific products such as “hotels in Goa” and “cheap flights to Mumbai”.
- Search Ads for High-Intent Users: With high-competition travel keywords, MMT ensures that its ads are served to top search users actively travelling for bookings, directly translating into an upturn in conversion rates.
- Retargeting Through Google Display Network: MMT uses retargeting advertising to reach users who have previously visited its site, sending them reminders of the offers or destinations that caught their attention. Display ads are typically visual, with high-involvement images or discounts to lure back potential customers.
Creative Themes and Messaging Strategies
The ads from MakeMyTrip shine through their storytelling, humour, and relatability. The following are the common themes and messaging strategies taken up by MMT:
Relatable Travel Scenarios and Humor
MMT often plays on humour and down-to-earth situations for new travellers or those pressured into online bookings. Typical travel frustrations include last-minute booking, budgeting deliberations, and overwhelming options, all of which redirect the audience’s thoughts and feelings.
Celebrity Endorsements to Build Trust and Reach
Bollywood bigwigs such as Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt are the familiar faces of MakeMyTrip ads. Such tie-ups imbue the brand with credibility while creating an aspiration, especially amongst the youth.
- Character Roles and Humor: MMT’s ads showcase celebrities in their humorous avatars, thus giving the audience some time to laugh their hearts out while keeping the brand name fresh in memory.
- Regional Appeal: By using popular Bollywood stars across India, MMT attracts attention relevant across various cultures.
Messaging Around Deals, Discounts, and Affordability
MakeMyTrip product advertisements boast not just discounts and deals but also cashback offerings that specially jive with price-sensitive travellers. Words like “Best Deals,” “Special Offers,” and “Book Now and Save” create urgency that desirably tends to lure users to action.
National Pride and Domestic Tourism
During some important national events and holidays, MMT’s messaging encourages domestic tourism, interlacing the same with the patriotic appeal. Campaigns asking Indians to “Explore Their Own Country” have gained increasing traction as demand for local travel rises. MMT spots culturally ornate and previously untainted places within India, thus appealing to a sense of patriotism combined with the convenience of domestic travel.
Also Read: Hilton Ads Best Practices
Ad Formats and Innovations
MakeMyTrip employs diverse ad formats for different stages of the booking funnel, from awareness to conversion. Some of the key ad formats employed by MMT are:
Carousel Ads on Social Media
Carousel ads are a staple for MakeMyTrip on Facebook and Instagram. Carousel ads enable the brand to advertise multiple properties, destinations, or deals in a single swipeable ad. This format is an effective way to promote different choices and packages, especially holiday promotions or travel packages.
Video Story Ads on Instagram and Snapchat
MMT uses short story ads on Instagram Stories and Snapchat to speak specifically to a younger target audience through nice “travel story” content. These ads visually stand out for their focus on unique experiences and discounts in an engaging, short format.
Programmatic Display Ads for Retargeting
MMT employs programmatic retargeting to draw back the users who browsed the site for their reservations but made no bookings. Dynamic retargeting ads by MMT remind them of the flights, hotels, or packages they viewed and present time-sensitive discounts, with messages like “limited-time discount” or “last available room,” thus converting them faster.
YouTube Bumper Ads for Brand Awareness
MakeMyTrip generally runs six-second bumper ads on YouTube just before the peak travel season to reinforce brand awareness quickly. The six-second long spots tend to contain either brand messaging or highlight some unique offers, which allow MMT to stay front-of-mind without being overly intrusive.
In-App Notifications and Push Ads
MMT is fully aware that its mobile app is the best channel for connecting them with highly active users who are willing to make real-time purchases. In-app notifications and push ads remind users about lucrative promotions, discounts on flights, or holiday packages that create an immediate engagement mindset followed by repeat visits.
Data-Driven Personalization and Targeting Techniques
MakeMyTrip seems to be mainly data-driven in its approach to advertising because it understands targeting personalisation well, leading to considerable levels of engagement. In the following paragraph, how MMT optimises its ads with the help of data is highlighted.
Dynamic Retargeting for Abandoned Bookings
Dynamic retargeting refers to ads for people who added bookings to the cart but did not complete it. MMT runs ads containing details about the abandoned booking, destination, or package details in a bid to entice the user to book it.
Geo-Targeting Based on Travel Demand
MakeMyTrip regularly employs geo-targeting by customising its advertisements according to the user’s location. For example, ads about the weekend getaway deals to Jaipur would be visible to users in Delhi, or ads in Goa would target users from Mumbai. The strategy behind this is that ads become more relevant to the particular audience, increasing boost conversion rates.
Interest-Based Targeting for Personalized Recommendations
By pursuing interest-based targeting, MMT can do the most personalised ads imaginable for every user on, say, “beach vacations,” “family packages,” or “adventure travel.” These targeted ads resonate quite well with users depending on their search history, thus improving the rates of user engagement.
Seasonal and Promotional Campaigns
MakeMyTrip maximises its reach through seasonal promotions and time-based campaigns often in sync with India’s peak travel seasons, holidays, and festivals.
Holiday Promotions
MMT runs high-intensity campaigns during peak holiday seasons like Diwali and New Year that offer discounts for flights, hotels, and holiday packages. Such promotions build urgency with countdown timers and limited-time offers.
Weekend Getaway Deals
To take advantage of short-term travel demand, MMT frequently runs ads centred around weekends, giving options for staycations just a few hours from key metros. The ads are geotargeted to reach audiences who might be interested in last-minute bookings.
Related: Agoda Ad Campaigns
Case Studies: MakeMyTrip Ads
The “Dil Toh Roaming Hai” Campaign
One of the most iconic campaigns of MakeMyTrip is “Dil Toh Roaming Hai” (the Heart is Always Roaming), which started in 2017 and highlighted the essence of wandering and discovery, holding on to the basic sense of exploring new destinations.
Campaign Highlights:
- Celebrity Endorsements: Featuring Bollywood stars Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, this campaign used a variety of funny and relatable characters in the ads to represent the joys of travel. The choice of these popular figures helped MakeMyTrip to connect with the general audience.
- Humour and Relatability: The ads used light humour to highlight commonplace travel situations, which MakeMyTrip solves for ease of booking.
- Promotions and Deals: The campaign spoke volumes about MMT’s exclusive deals and discounts, thus inviting viewers to book their travels on the platform.
Real Example in Action:
Ranveer and Alia played colourful and relatable characters, whether budget travellers or luxury seekers. They promoted MMT hotel and flight offers through amusing little skits, all reiterating the central theme of the campaign: the heart is always roaming. The ads reached audiences across television, YouTube, and MMT’s social media channels.
The “Book. Smile. Go” Campaign
Launched in 2019, MakeMyTrip’s “Book. Smile. Go” campaign targeted budget travel with a headache-free reservation, reiterating MMT’s motto to make travel easy and accessible for all. The campaign really spoke to young professionals, families, and budget travellers who were seeking easy solutions to plan their travels.
Campaign Highlights:
- Stress-Free Booking: The commercials always emphasise the quick and soft booking of MakeMyTrip, telling users how easy booking is with a reliable platform.
- Visually Rich and Engaging: The commercials used vivid visuals of popular destinations and happy travellers to create a spirit of adventure and excitement surrounding the trip.
- Simple Tagline: Book. Smile. Go.” highlighted the simplicity of MakeMyTrip’s platform, directly appealing to users who need convenient travel booking.
Real Example in Action:
The ads showed travellers booking flights and hotels through MakeMyTrip in a series of quick steps. Each video featured smiling travellers completing their bookings, perfectly portraying how MMT eradicates the tension involved with planning. The campaign unfolded on YouTube and social media with travel influencers sharing their “Book. Smile. Go” moments, hence multiplying the campaign’s reach.
MakeMyTrip’s “No Room for Error” Campaign
MakeMyTrip’s initiative ‘No Room for Error,’ which they launched in 2020, was a concerted effort to indicate MMT’s focus on the quality and reliability of hotel bookings, aiming to assure travellers regarding their overall fears regarding hotel quality and booking issues.
Campaign Highlights:
- Focus on Quality and Trust: In the campaign, MMT focused on the meticulous capitalisation of hotel selection processes and other measures that ensured top-quality stays through the platform.
- Assurance and Transparency: The ads managed to project MMT’s trustworthiness, with the assurance that the travellers would find what was advertised and, thus, would help eliminate their apprehensions about booking rooms.
- Humour and Relatability: The ads engaged humorous storytelling of the not-so-pleasant happenings with hotels booked from unexplained platforms, thus positioning MMT as the new dependable option.
Real Example in Action:
The advertisements featured actors Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt as travellers dealing with “room horrors,” such as small size, bad views, and lack of amenities- all booked on rival platforms. MakeMyTrip emerged as the hero, providing customers with rooms backed by quality assurance and descriptions along with real images. The campaign solicited trust among the buyers and provided them with a reason to consider MMT as a reliable booking solution.
The “India Ka Travel Planner” Campaign
The “India Ka Travel Planner”, or India’s Travel Planner by MakeMyTrip, is the grand attempt to brand MMT as a leader of India’s booking services. Introduced in 2018, it focuses on flights and hotel options, as well as trains and packages in the form of holiday plans.
Campaign Highlights:
- Comprehensive Offerings: MMT would depict its business model through a full-service offer and multiple bookings from a single site, ensuring complete service fulfillment at a place.
- Regional Focus: MakeMyTrip tried localizing its advertisements for various regions in India, talking in local languages, and taking popular destinations across India at face value.
- Multi-Platform Presence: It ran across television, social media, YouTube, and print to reach a wide demographic – young travellers, families, and business professionals.
Explore Now: Expedia Advertising
Real Example in Action:
It included different types of travelers, such as adventure seekers, family vacationers, and business travelers, who found the perfect travel solution with MMT. The campaign solidified MMT’s status as a trustworthy “travel planner” for every Indian based on the credible headline and imagery that spoke to the masses.
Conclusion
MakeMyTrip’s advertising strategy is a great blend of creativity, strategic celebrity endorsements, and data-driven targeting to connect with Indian travelers on multiple fronts. With diverse ad formats, platforms, and seasonal promotions, MakeMyTrip has been able to create a very powerful brand presence in India’s competitive travel market.
Humour, relatability, and an in-depth understanding of its target audience’s travel needs are how MakeMyTrip’s campaigns reach users and encourage them to travel. For the brands looking for lessons from MMT, focusing on personalized multi-platform campaigns and building an emotional resonance with audiences are two useful strategies to adopt.
