Profiteering from the collapse of XL? Or shrewd marketing?
Within hours of the news that the UK’s third largest package holiday group XL, went into administration yesterday, the above sponsored ads on Google started appearing.
As well as the top 3 ads featured above there were further ads from the likes of Fly BMI, British Airways, Travel Republic and a fair few other online travel agents.
So is it in bad taste? Should other travel operators and airlines try to capitalise on the downfall of one of their competitors? And what about that ad from “The People’s Post Office”? Is it me or do they seem to be gloating? Almost as if to say “Don’t you wish you had booked some travel insurance with us? If you did you wouldn’t be in this mess”.
Or is all fair in love and the Internet? Are the above ads just there to help stranded passengers looking to get home, any way they can?
Personally, I think it’s a fine line to walk. I find the Post Office ad distasteful and it’s put me off ever booking insurance with them. However, the other ads could be seen as offering a useful service to XL customers. I’m particularly impressed by the speed in which Thomson have put together a dedicated landing page.
What do you think?
What I’m listening to right now: John Legend Feat Kanye West – “It’s Over”
Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Google AdWords. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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[...] Kieron Donoghue noted the stream of vulturous Google Ads clawing at the bones of the failed UK airline XL: [...]
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other businesses. I thought it would be fun to blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
Good post Kieron and well highlighted. It’s a tough line to tread between profiteering and being helpful, I think we’ve got the right tone (but I would say that). I think one of the key reasons we built the page was because Thomson is both a tour operator and a travel agent (so XL holidays booked in Thomson shops) and some customers are often confused about the agent ‘contract’ versus the ‘tour operator’ contract.
yeh i think its fine, a bit clinical some might say but i guess they are helping
is XL still a trademark though?
Capitalising on the misfortunes of others was inevitable…. I had a holiday to Gran Canaria with XL for this time next week.. that’s now off the cards.
agreed on the post office ad. it reminds me of Nelson Muntz pointing at Bart Simpson screaming “Ha Ha!”
Especially ironic that the diplay URL is “ThePeoplesPostOffice”.