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BRAG Love Letters: Travel

Mar 09, 2023
By: Ravi Pimplaskar

What’s love got to do with it? When it comes to leading apps, plenty! Our newest BRAG Brand Insights infographics celebrate the Brands mobile consumers love. Check them out! 

Our BRAG Love Letters blogs will focus on our emotional call-outs to some brands where love absolutely wasn’t blind.

If you haven’t yet seen our BRAG Brand Insights, it reveals what customers think of the leading apps we use when we want to relax, connect, or be entertained. And while streaming video, music, or shopping might bring us immediate gratification, travel is our ultimate indulgence! While we may not be able to travel “in the moment”, we can always open up out favorite travel app and dream of destinations to come. 

We all certainly had those travel daydreams during pandemic times. But as travel restrictions have eased, people are making those dreams a reality. The information and booking agent app TripAdvisor stood out in our insights ranking #1 for Brand Power, a measure of consumer interest in installing an app. But what other apps stood out? Here’s some love letters to apps that we totally want to “ship”: 

People sure do love rewards! The Marriott Bonvoy rewards app led our rankings for Brand Love (positive consumer sentiment) and the “Love Compass” (the direction brand opinion is trending). One key variable for them is having the highest percentage of users willing to recommend the app. However, despite this level of Brand Love, Marriott has the 4th LOWEST level of awareness among the 20 apps surveyed. With positive buzz, Marriott can capitalize by not only incentivizing users to invite friends and family, but by being more prevalent on devices and weaving customer stories into their campaigns.

While Lyft lags behind fellow rideshare app Uber in our Brand Love and Brand Power rankings, they may have a bigger opportunity to grow. The reason for this is low ownership among those aware of the app. While some of this may be due to Uber serving more localities than Lyft, our data also shows that Uber has also created a strong attachment with its users. Lyft could have the opportunity to become more “sticky” among users through in-app advertising campaigns focusing on loyalty points or other incentives for riders.

We surveyed consumers on several travel aggregators, including Booking.com, Orbitz, Expedia, and Priceline. Consumer awareness among these apps doesn’t vary significantly as you can see in the chart. Orbitz, however, has only a 3% ownership among those aware – a number seriously dwarfed by other users in the space including 5x lower than Expedia, which is owned by the same company. Thus, by creating a strong cross- affiliation in their ad campaigns, Expedia could help Orbitz grow users. 

Don’t miss our Streaming Video, Streaming Music, and Shopping Love Letters. And stay tuned to read what we have to say about Social Media apps next week.  

By Ravi Pimplaskar
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