Best Travel Integrated Ad Campaign

In 2016, Expedia Media Solutions and VisitBritain launched “The Only Place You Need to Go,” an innovative campaign designed to inspire travelers from France, Germany and the U.S. to put Britain at the top of their travel wish list.

The campaign launched with a bespoke content platform that helped users discover regional events happening throughout the year. To support the online content, the team aired a series of humorous TV commercials, which showcased characters from five distinct destinations across Great Britain who offered competing takes on why their region was the only place travelers needed to go. The characters who brought these storylines to life also appeared in the third phase of the campaign, which featured a bespoke video player that is the first ever to utilize a smartphone’s gyroscope and helped users navigate through the featured destinations by pointing their phone in a different direction. After engaging with the content, users were presented with an itinerary specific to the location they spent the most time interacting with and were directed to the branded platform where they could book their ideal trip to Britain.

The campaign was a success, resulting in a nearly 40% and more than 40% increase year-over-year in passenger and air ticket demand, respectively across all markets, as well as more than 40% increase in room night demand for the U.S. market. The campaign also produced a more than 20% overall increase in visits to Great Britain, a 46:1 return on ad spend and 175 million impressions.

Contributors:

EXPEDIA MEDIA SOLUTIONS

Location: United States

About the Agency:

Expedia Media Solutions, the advertising arm of Expedia, Inc., offers industry expertise and digital marketing solutions that allow brands to reach, engage and influence its qualified audience of travelers around the world. Through its vast network of leading travel brands and global points of sale, Expedia Media Solutions provides partners with proprietary data-driven insights about traveler behaviors during every stage of the purchase journey, along with dynamic advertising solutions, to deliver strategic campaigns and measurable results.