For this year’s winter travel season, Expedia.ca decided to take a different track, focusing on the ease of its pre-packaged vacations, rather than the desolate Canadian winters we all long to escape.
“World Traveller,” the 45-second spot at the centre of the campaign, highlights the ease of finding the right travel destination with Expedia. It opens on a dishevelled castaway narrating his life-long journey to find the perfect beach, then pans to a satisfied traveller who found the same beach in a couple of seconds online.
Ben Weinberg, one of the creative directors at Grip, Expedia’s long-time AOR, said the brand wanted to use its signature tongue-in-cheek style to get travellers thinking about how easy finding a good travel package can be. It’s a departure from previous winter campaigns, like Expedia’s “Escape Winter” ads from last year.
“Often in travel ads, what we’re talking about is what you’re escaping from. This was about what you’re escaping to,” he said.
He added that Expedia and its creative team have worked out a strategy for the winter travel season that will first focus on the merits of the destination, and later in the season when Canadians are really getting tired of winter, follow up with a second, more tried-and-true seasonal campaign about reaching the winter “breaking point.”
“World Traveller” is also a lot less jarring than “Escape Winter,” which caused some controversy last year when it aired too frequently and annoyed some viewers. Expedia and Grip responded with a quirky online video showing people who’d tweeted negative comments about the commercial smashing the violin that played in it.
The “World Traveller” TV and online preroll campaign will be accompanied by cinema and print creative. Expedia will also launch a contest on social in the coming weeks, with a beach vacation as the prize.
