On The Beach is to launch its first fully-national TV advertising campaign on Boxing Day with its highest spend on a peak season campaign.
The online travel agency has just announced a pre-tax profit of £14.5 million for the year ending September 30 and reached more than one million UK customers for the first time in its history.
Founder and chief executive, Simon Cooper, said it would be the first time the agency had aired a television advertisement in London.
The company first advertised on television at the end of 2013 and the start of 2014 in the Midlands.
He said: “Last year we were fully national apart from London. The key thing for us was to understand the impact of offline advertising. We liked what we saw which is why we have extended it. This region (London) presents a huge opportunity for us. Our brand awareness is lower in London and can grow by more.”
Cooper would not reveal details of the campaign which runs until mid-February but said it was a new advertisement which was aligned with the company’s values and beach focus. “It’s a bit tongue in cheek,” he added.
Cooper also revealed plans for the agency to launch in Norway and Denmark in 2016 following a strong financial performance for the year to September 30.
It launched in Sweden in January this year under the domain name ebeach.se.
Norway will go live in the first quarter of 2016, with Denmark to follow later in the year.
“Norway is currently in testing,” he said. “These are countries where online penetration is higher and holidaymakers want sunshine.”
The company also has plans to grow its longhaul product range in order to expand its customer base and increase its proportion of directly-contracted product, which currently makes up more than half of its range.