TV travel campaign invites you on a dinner date with Miss Lucy

Miss Lucy will tell her dinner guests about the best places to visit.

With the travel sector becoming increasingly competitive, one large supplier is hoping to differentiate itself through a new approach to advertising.

TV viewers will regularly tune in to hear tales from the House of Travel's "Miss Lucy" if the agency's new advertising campaign goes to plan.

The emergence of low-cost carriers and the rise of direct bookings online are having a strong impact on traditional travel agencies.

The House of Travel aimed to differential itself from competitors with its new campaign, said director of marketing Chris Sutton.

It is shunning information-based product-and-price ads in favour of a series - titled The Dinner Party - designed to evoke the emotional impact of travel.

The campaign, which launches with a teaser ad this weekend, follows the face of House of Travel, Miss Lucy, as she tells friends over dinner about her holiday exploring Britain and Europe.

The series of six one-minute ads, each featuring a different country, will run at 6.50pm on TV One and TV3, five nights a week for six weeks.

Strategist Michael Prentice, from the House of Travel's advertising agency Ogilvy, said the campaign was designed to involve customers in a dialogue rather than a more traditional "one-way" communication approach.

"They are giving information that people can take and use for themselves," says Prentice.

He said the information applied to people who booked travel in a variety of ways, including online.

Appointment viewing - a regular slot at 6.50pm - encouraged viewers to regularly tune in to follow the unfolding story, said Prentice.

AUT creative advertising senior lecturer Paul White said past campaigns successfully used story-telling to engage viewers.

One memorable series was the Anchor milk campaign written by Ogilvy's Roy Meares and Jeremy Taine.

"That was actually, genuinely something that people watched like a soap opera," said White.

He said the approach was different to the mixture of product and price ads and travel show sponsorship that other travel agencies tended to use.

House of Travel opened in 1987, advertising mainly through product-and-price print ads.

About five years ago it launched its World is a Stage brand television commercial, which was developed by ad agency Meares Taine Creative, since taken over by Ogilvy, and cost $1 million to produce.

Sutton said the travel agency's sales were up 21 per cent a year after the ad launched and were now up 220 per cent.

A second big-budget brand television commercial featuring a retro Miss Lucy again positioned the travel as "fun, happy and innovative", said Sutton.

The Dinner Party series tapped into the travel agent's traditional role as the holder of expert information about overseas destinations, said Sutton.

It filtered out highlights from all the sources of available information about destinations, he said.

Its TV schedule, which makes up 45 per cent of the campaign's spend, will be supported by press, direct marketing and online.

Travel Agents Association chief executive Paul Yeo says clarity and transparency were key to travel advertisements.