
← Ad Age Marketer's Brief5 Aug · 18 min
Turning consumer signals into campaigns that work, with Kayak's senior VP of brand marketing
An idea isn't a strategy. Kayak's marketing team gets plenty of raw material—search behavior, trending topics, notions floating around a meeting room—but treats none of it as ready for creative until research confirms it's real. That process turned a theory about group travel into "Bookboards": 84% of travelers have watched a group trip stall in the chat, and 90% blame one friend who won't commit.
The travel brand's senior VP of global brand marketing Carolina Montenegro walks through how Kayak separates a real consumer pattern from a passing one, how the brand teases familiar behavior without punching down, and what that discipline looks like for marketers outside travel.
Dig deeper:
~Kayak's 'Bookboards' let friends shame a holdout who won't commit to a trip
~Millennials get thrashed in Kayak's biting booking campaign
~How brands can separate passing fads from valuable consumer insights
~Circana's Cara Pratt on inventory versus insight, and why more data isn't the answer