How Expedia Engaged Audiences During Super Bowl.
About Expedia’s new ad, “Stuff.”
“Do you think any of us will look back on our lives and regret the things we didn’t buy? Or, the places we didn’t go?” — Expedia
Lately, Expedia released a new ad during Super Bowl 56, focusing on delivering that experience is more important to tangible products to the public.
First, let’s take a look at this 30 seconds ad:
In the ad, Expedia used Ewan McGregor as their endorsement to weigh the value of experience against physical products. By walking through the products, passing by stuff that people are interested in, like cars, perfume, TV, beer, and smartphone, McGregor said, “I doubt that any of us will look back on our lives and think, ‘I wish I’d bought an even thinner TV, found a lighter light beer or had an even smarter smartphone.” Then, he opened a door and walked into a beach, saying what people will regret in the future is the places they didn’t go, not the things they didn’t buy.
Unlike other ads released at Super Bowl that mainly advertised physical “stuff,” Expedia told people to save money for the things that matters, which is the experience, and it really makes a strong contrast.
Meanwhile… On Twitter.
Moreover, Expedia launched a campaign on Twitter to give away 20 trips worth a total of $120,000 during the Super Bowl. By following Expedia on Twitter, quoting RT of Expedia’s tweets, which are travel-related tweets inspired by other commercials during the big game, and hashtagging TravelTheAd, you can have a chance to win the prize! Here are some examples of how Expedia turned other commercials into an opportunity to travel interestingly:
By doing this, Expedia not only engaged people to join their Super Bowl campaign but also responded to their “stuff” advertisement, “we love stuff, but we like experiences better.” Besides, since the prizes will be given out in points, Expedia also attracts people who haven’t become their Expedia Rewards Member to join the membership.
Not done yet, campaign is still going!
Expedia’s new tagline “Made to Travel” emphasizes that what matters is the experience of life, the place you go, the food you eat, and the people you’ve been with. Expedia wants to bring the travel culture to people and is also trying to make the experience the smoothest for everyone. By having people engaged in their #ExpediaChat, Expedia invited everyone to share their travel experience by replying to the topics.
The #ExpediaChat campaign theme that launched after the Super Bowl commercial, “stuff,” is all about travel experiences, which once again makes an echo that Expedia stands for experiences over things.
So, what’s the result?
In my opinion, the series of Expedia’s Super Bowl commercial campaign impressed me a lot since it used Twitter as its primary social platform to invite everyone to get engaged.
First, Expedia announced the #TravelTheAds campaign rules before the Super Bowl to let people stay tuned about it. Second, during the Super Bowl, Expedia tweeted travel-related posts inspired by other commercials and invited people to retweet to get a chance to win prizes. Then, after the Super Bowl, Expedia keeps doing the #ExpediaChat with a travel experience theme to remind people of their belief, “we like experiences better than stuff.”
By seeing one of the winners’ tweets in Expedia’s Super Bowl campaign, it seems that people found this engaging interactive exciting and had a lot of fun. Moreover, the “stuff” ad posted on YouTube already has almost 7,500,000 views, and it’s keeping to increase daily.
Therefore, I think that Expedia made good use of the Super Bowl opportunity to release its new ad and tagline and also use Twitter to engage everyone to create a buzz. I love the idea and truly learned a lot from it!
