Expedia: TRAVEL YOUR TWEET INTERESTING

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Branded Entertainment
Category: Use or integration of digital or social media
Advertiser: EXPEDIA
Product/Service: EXPEDIA
Agency: OGILVY & MATHER LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Client: EXPEDIA
Product: EXPEDIA
Entrant: OGILVY & MATHER LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Type of Entry: Branded Entertainment
Category: Use or integration of digital or social media
Entrant Company : OGILVY & MATHER LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Contributing Company : OGILVY & MATHER LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Agency : PHD London, UNITED KINGDOM
Cheif Creative Officer/Executive Creative Director: Gerry Human (Ogilvy And Mather)
Creative Director: Ivan Pols (Ogilvy And Mather)
Copywriter: Jon Morgan (Ogilvy And Mather)
Art Director: Mike Watson (Ogilvy And Mather)
Copywriter: Simon Lotze (Ogilvy And Mather)
Art Director: Miguel Nunes (Ogilvy And Mather)
Digital Producer: Hannah Moore (Ogilvy And Mather)
Lead Social Strategist: James Whatley (Ogilvy And Mather)
Planner: Mattijs Devroedt (Ogilvy And Mather)
Editor: Stephanie Symonds (Ogilvy And Mather)
Client Services Director: Sandra Sydow (PHD)
Account Manager: Harriet Edmonds (Ogilvy And Mather)
Account Manager: Jessica Wilkinson (Ogilvy And Mather)
Account Manager: Briony Gittins (Ogilvy And Mather)
Account Executive: Joseph Grigg (Ogilvy And Mather)
Business Director: Stephen Hillcoat (Ogilvy And Mather)
Managing Partner: Mark Lainas (Ogilvy And Mather)
Agency Producer: Rory Elms (Ogilvy And Mather)

Describe the campaign/entry:
The UK’s regulatory body for branded content is OFCOM. OFCOM was set up as an EU initiative; however the UK has traditionally been stricter than other member states in the application of these rules.

Results:
Challenge
We were briefed to create a social media campaign that promoted Expedia’s new mobile app and brought Expedia’s tagline “Travel Yourself Interesting” to life online.

Strategy
We chose Twitter for our campaign for two reasons. Firstly, it is the perfect platform to promote the Expedia mobile app as 80% of UK Twitter users access Twitter via a mobile device. And secondly, it let us reach a young, well-travelled and tech-savvy audience exasperated with boring people on their own Twitter feeds.

Execution
Using social listening technology, we searched for the UK’s most boring tweets in realtime and then sent the selected tweets to exotic locations around the world, where we had small production teams on standby. Within minutes, we travelled the tweet interesting, filmed the result and then tweeted the branded film back to the original offender where it could be retweeted by them or their followers. Using the Expedia Twitter account, we shared the films with our own followers and promoted them with promoted tweets and trends on Twitter itself. At the end of each film, viewers were encouraged to download Expedia’s mobile app.

We also created a #TYI hashtag, which let people follow the campaign and tag their own dull tweets. We then picked the most boring ones and then travelled them interesting all over the world, creating unique, branded films and content for each boring tweet.


We used Twitter to draw our audience to the content and then amplify it. First, we searched for dull tweets in realtime and then tweeted a response back to targeted tweeters with a large number of followers in the form of a branded film. Our films were amplified by the targeted tweeters re-tweeting them, their followers sharing the films, Expedia tweeting the campaign to its own followers and through the use of promoted tweets and promoted trends on Twitter.


During our activation period, our video responses were viewed for more than 5000 hours and Expedia’s Twitter followers increased by 40%. 99% of tweets mentioning the campaign were positive and we garnered 4 million impressions and 497 000 engagements in just 2 weeks. But best of all, downloads of Expedia’s mobile app increased by 25.4%