Stayzilla goes outdoor to promote #AaramStay

Through its OOH campaign, the brand wants to promote its array of personalised services.

Aaram (convenience) is often associated with home and probably deters people from travelling frequently. Working on this insight, marketplace of stays Stayzilla.com created #AaramStay, a campaign to promote its personalised services that provides tailor-made options to consumers.

The platform currently claims to have over 35, 000 properties across 4500 towns in India and aims to reach out to consumers in both metros and unmetros.

The outdoor campaign, executed in Bengaluru and Mumbai, utilised bus shelters to inform consumers about Stayzilla's offerings. It was also heavily promoted on social media and garnered 10,000 tweets, reaching 270,000 users, creating 1.1 million impressions. There were around hundred crowdsourced images of the bus shelters shared on social media platforms.

Speaking about the objective of the campaign, Vedanarayanan Vedantham, head of marketing, Stayzilla.com, says, "We offer convenient stay options to consumers catering to every personal need, which translates into 'aaram' in Hindi. We wanted to play the local vernacular card because it resonates with our TG as well."

Stayzilla recently started offline advertising with SpiceJet baggage tags, radio spots and branding at airports.

Founded in 2005 as Inasra.com, the platform was rebranded to Stayzilla in 2010. Apart from Oyorooms, it also competes with established OTAs like Yatra, MakeMyTrip and ClearTrip. However, Vedantham believes that their model is different.

"We are a hybrid marketplace - we have both structured properties (hotel, lodges, and resorts) and alternate accommodation spaces (home stays, vacation homes etc). A consumer will have more options on Stayzilla than any other hotel listing platform. We are not just an OTA; we do not leave consumers high and dry after the online booking phase. We have a strong support mechanism for consumers for both pre and post booking service through our 'Concierge Service'," he asserts.

The concierge service includes features such as personalised rooms, making sure senior citizens get ground floor rooms, kid-friendly rooms, transportation, flexible check-in dates etc.

According to Vedantham, adwords are a key tool to get footfalls on their platform. But, social media has worked really well for them. The company creates a lot of content on Facebook and Twitter which keeps users engaged. YouTube advertising is another medium the brand uses extensively.

Insara Technologies recently raised $20 million in a Series B round of funding led by Nexus Ventures with participation from existing investor Matrix Partners India. The funding, as per reports, is being used for expansion in new cities, developing a stronger brand platform, as well as for increasing the partner network.