Wednesday, 9 February 2011

HomeAway Pays Homage to James Bond



A new campaign for vacation rental marketplace HomeAway will debut during the Super Bowl this Sunday. Created by Austin-based Vendor, Inc. (gotta love the reference to the fact most clients treat an agency like a vendor rather than a strategist/consultant/business partner) and The Mill, the commercial, called Smush, borrows a chapter from the James Bond films and takes us inside The Ministry of Detourism.

Inside The Ministry, all manner of hotel-stay experimentation occurs to convince us that a hotel is not the place we want to stay when we go on vacation. Why subject ourselves to these horrors when we can rent an entire home instead?

Directed by Emmy-winner Rocky Morton, the spot does a great job illustrating the insanities one sometimes has to put up with during a hotel stay. Not that a private home doesn't come with its own problems but the ad makes a compelling argument.