So they’re going to get a ton of value and they just have to make, I think the industry has trained people to think they’re going to lose out every time, loyalty program changes. This is not one of those circumstances. I won’t say there’s not a single customer who won’t find that, they don’t like this one as well as the last one. But this is a great program with a lot of value for the heaviest users and I think they will all come to understand it and love it. And appreciate the benefits. What they got, even though, it might be slightly different than it was. All right, thank you.
Lloyd Walmsley: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Naved Khan from B. Riley Securities. Your line is open.
Naved Khan: Yes, hi. Thank you. Just a couple of questions. Peter, I think you, I heard you say you might have gained share in some of the international markets and I’m a little intrigued what may be driving that. Any kind of commentary there would be helpful. And then I will follow up.
Peter Kern: Yes, I think it’s really just intent on our part, as we reacted to COVID and we started rebuilding things, in a number of markets in the rest of the world, we back down spend a little bit and we got a little more conservative as we wanted to build our new mousetrap, as it were. And I think now that we have greater confidence in all the things I’ve talked about, be it membership, the value of app downloads, and so forth, we’ve been driving back into a number of international markets where we think there are good returns and we’ve been seeing nice returns. Now, these are modest changes in the scheme of things. There’s nothing dramatic happening, but we’re just seeing, what I call low hanging fruit and opportunity for us to move back into some of these markets in a smarter way.
So, again, not a huge story there, just that, we feel good about share in the U.S., we feel good about what we’re seeing, early signs as we push back into these international markets. So, on share , we’re feeling reasonably good with more on this.
Naved Khan: Understood. Yes. The follow up I had is just around advertising and we are hearing some commentary from other players about maybe some increased competition, maybe in Europe or other markets. I’m curious if you’re seeing anything there or anything to say about Google’s new ad format. I think they recently introduced proper understanding of their main search.
Peter Kern: Yes. I think on the last part, you’re talking about vacation rentals. Is that what you’re talking about?
Naved Khan: No, it’s still, there’s hotels, but I think this introduced a new format into the main search.
Peter Kern: Yes. I mean, I would say, look, we’re working with them and working in the auctions around the world all the time. I don’t think we’ve seen anything particularly different in terms of inflation or not in the auctions. I mean, the auctions have been inflating over the last several years. And of course, they’re highly competitive, particularly amongst the biggest of us. But no, I don’t think we’ve seen anything that’s of any concern, et cetera, over what’s happening in terms of pricing in those markets. And of course, we are trying every day to find better opportunities, higher long-term return opportunities to invest our advertising dollars, be it in app downloads or other kinds of environments, shall I say, that encourage those behaviors, as opposed to just Google auctions.
So I think we’re probably not alone in that, but that’s been a core part of our strategy as we’ve tried to get away from simply trying to buy transactions and getting much more focused on what consumers we buy, getting them into the right state in the app, and so forth. So that’s an ongoing journey for us, but that’s the direction that journey will keep going on forever.
Naved Khan: Got it. Thank you, Peter.
Peter Kern: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of John Colantuoni from Jeffries. Your line is open. Your next question comes from the line of Jed Kelly from Oppenheimer & Co. Your line is open.
Jed Kelly: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just two, if I may. Just one, just the airlines that recently called out weaker domestic trends. Is there anything where there’s just softening underlying demand or is that the pattern shifts that you kind of mentioned earlier? And then just thinking about your back half brand spend. Can you just talk about the efficiencies you plan to get on being able to market all your brands under one loyalty program versus marketing them all separately? And are you going to continue to market each of your key brands separately? Thanks.
