Shall I begin with a confession? I was a cool lover of print. It was a necessary medium in the media mix. Ideal for promoting offers. Looking at the results, one could only draw a positive conclusion. But despite those results, I still remained a cool lover.

For me, a print campaign is not only about the reach, I believe, and the conversion, which had proven itself, but also about the distinctive creative impact. And it was precisely that last argument that was repeatedly lacking in the rollout of our campaign. It’s hard to differentiate when everyone is doing the same thing: buying up 1/1 pages in newspapers.

Fast forward to October 2018. We briefed our print partners on this problem and The Telegraph in The Netherlands came up with a wonderful proposal fully in line with our media beliefs: an 8-page insert once a week during 10 weeks.

A booster, a conversion machine: those were the promises. It piqued our interest. And being entrepreneurs, we immediately wanted to set up a test.

Creative
8 pages seems nice but you also have to get it filled. This requires a lot of information from many parts of the organization. And of course you have room to tell a story, offer accommodations, go deeper into the USP’s, interviews etc. From a creative point of view, you want to create a magazine that you want to keep and put on the coffee table to revisit later.

Through preliminary testing we arrived at the ideal insert.

To measure is to know
The results were astonishing. In the first edition we saw a 290% uplift in page views of the published hotels compared to the year before. The following editions finished with an average of 196%. A doubling. Worth all the time and effort to make it happen. We cannot communicate the conversion figures, but it says enough that the insert has become a fixed format in our media mix.

The advantage of an internal media agency is the learning curve. Good results with a format in one country are quickly tested in another one. So, in 2019, we decided to roll out this format in Flanders (BE). Each market has off course its own policy. So we adapted it. The difference was found in two things: we published it in magazines instead of newspapers and it was a non-removable edition in the middle of the magazine. We were surprised with the same results as in The Netherlands.

Since 2021 we also publish inserts in Denmark. The first results still have to be analysed but the there’s a strong belief that this format can just jump out of the clutter. In 2021 in NL we switched to a 4p insert which gives us the opportunity to highlight more themes and destinations.

What’s in for you as a hotel partner or destination?
We regularly plan new insert waves. As a hotel or destination, you can step in and give your spot more attention.

Spotlight package
In this package two pages (out of 8) are reserved for you. The content is in co-creation. It’s a place where you can promote your hotel as the ideal destination. Take a look at the recent example we worked out together in the Danish edition with Sol Melia Hotels.

Exclusive Package
Seaks for itself, not? In this edition, mostly in NL, we create an insert with one focus: you. As an hotel you can write about the experiences, surroundings, things to do. Also ideal format as a region or destination. In 4 pages, you really have the possibility to surprise the reader with stunning content.