Expedia: Travel Your Tweet Interesting
Expedia needed to boost downloads for its new mobile app and reinforce its "Travel Yourself Interesting" brand message. The challenge was to engage a digitally native audience, particularly dull UK tweeters, by demonstrating travel's power to transform the mundane into the extraordinary, driving app adoption.
Creative Idea
Expedia traveled dull tweets to exciting global locations, filming and tweeting back the interesting results.
Expedia's "Travel Your Tweet Interesting" campaign demonstrated travel's transformative power by taking dull UK tweets, sending them to far-flung, exciting global locations for real-time, localized video interpretations, and tweeting them back, proving travel makes even the most mundane interesting and driving app downloads.
Turning Mundane Sandwiches Into Global Social Currency
The Logistics of Real Time Travel
While most digital campaigns of the era relied on CGI or stock footage, Ogilvy London and PHD London executed a massive logistical feat by deploying production teams to international destinations in real time. When a user posted a "boring" tweet - such as eating a sandwich or waiting for a bus - the team coordinated with crews in various time zones to physically recreate that exact scenario in an exotic locale. This required a global infrastructure capable of filming, editing, and tweeting back a high - production video response within hours. The campaign successfully pivoted travel marketing away from traditional "destination porn" toward social utility, focusing on how travel enhances the traveler’s personal brand.
From Magazine Column to Cannes Lion
The origin of the campaign was unconventional; Ogilvy reportedly secured the work without a formal pitch. The client was inspired to collaborate after reading an article by James Whatley in *Campaign* magazine regarding the future of social media engagement. This partnership eventually led to the project being ranked as the 3rd most effective campaign in the world for 2014 according to the WARC Effective 100.
Transforming the Boring Tweet Trope
The activation capitalized on the "humble - brag" culture of social media, turning the "boring tweet" into a creative asset. By entertaining viewers rather than delivering a hard sell, Expedia saw a significant lift in brand consideration and sentiment. Beyond the social engagement, a primary KPI was driving mobile app downloads, which was achieved by demonstrating the app's utility in actual travel scenarios. Strategy lead James Whatley later noted that the project remains a gold standard for using Twitter for high - production, real - time engagement rather than automated replies.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Expedia leveraged its global network of production teams and travel destinations to instantly transform mundane online content into exciting, real-world experiences.
Category
The travel category often showcases idyllic destinations or aspirational lifestyles, but this campaign focused on the immediate, personal transformation travel offers.
Customer
People often feel their lives are mundane and secretly desire to be more interesting, seeking validation and excitement in their daily online interactions.
Culture
The cultural trend of real-time social media sharing and the desire for instant, personalized online engagement made this responsive campaign highly resonant.
Company
Expedia leveraged its global network of production teams and travel destinations to instantly transform mundane online content into exciting, real-world experiences.
Category
The travel category often showcases idyllic destinations or aspirational lifestyles, but this campaign focused on the immediate, personal transformation travel offers.
Strategy:
Dramatize the transformative power of experience by contrasting the mundane with the extraordinary in real-time.
Customer
People often feel their lives are mundane and secretly desire to be more interesting, seeking validation and excitement in their daily online interactions.
Culture
The cultural trend of real-time social media sharing and the desire for instant, personalized online engagement made this responsive campaign highly resonant.
Strategy:
Dramatize the transformative power of experience by contrasting the mundane with the extraordinary in real-time.
Results
Over the promotional period, Expedia's video responses alone were viewed for more than 5000 hours. Their followers on Twitter increased by 40%. An impressive 99% of tweets mentioning the campaign were positive. Most importantly, downloads of Expedia's mobile app increased by 25.4%.
5000+ hours
video responses viewed
40%
increase in followers
25.4%
increase in app downloads
Strategy Technique
Create Contrast
The campaign dramatically contrasted mundane, everyday tweets with vibrant, global interpretations. By transforming boring content into exciting travel experiences, it powerfully demonstrated the "before and after" effect of travel.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Real-Time Relevance
The campaign actively searched for dull tweets in real-time and responded with personalized video content within 30 minutes. This immediate, relevant engagement showcased travel's transformative power directly to users.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
This campaign's craft is exceptional in its audacious real-time execution, transforming mundane online interactions into globally produced, engaging travel content through a brilliant strategic idea.
The sophisticated real-time monitoring of Twitter, rapid global content assignment, and swift delivery of personalized video responses demonstrate an exceptional and agile use of digital technology and workflow.
The imaginative and diverse on-the-ground interpretations of dull tweets, ranging from spelling out messages in meat for lions to unique cultural performances, showcase strong creative vision in transforming abstract ideas into tangible visual content.
The campaign's magic truly lies in the synergistic combination of a brilliant core idea with cutting-edge real-time digital infrastructure and agile, globally distributed content creation.
