Building brand awareness in key markets.
Intrepid Travel are the largest, small-group adventure tour provider in the world, operating thousands of trips worldwide every year.
The team at Intrepid asked us to produce a suite of assets to be used to target 16 key destinations across Europe, using YouTube ads.
These cities were chosen because they had been identified using market research as having ‘low brand awareness.’
We only had access to pre-edited footage, from the Intrepid Travel media library, and we were asked to turn this campaign around within two-weeks, so we had to be creative and quick.
The aim of Intrepid’s ad campaign was to reach as many people as possible in the 16 identified cities, with a call to action that, even if the viewer was unfamiliar with the brand, would compel them to click.
We produced two versions of the ad in multiple languages. The first version focused on the senses, persuading viewers that an Intrepid trip will change the way they see, touch, taste, hear and even smell the world. The second focused on the pros of small group travel.
We wanted viewers that were likely to skip the ad, to at least watch 10-15 seconds, rather than immediately skipping at the 5 second mark. In order to achieve this, we timed the transition shot through the phone in an attempt to keep the viewers attention for a few more seconds.
We then re-targeted ad viewers with a sequence of 6 second bumper ads and a series of Google network display banners, which acted as callbacks to the longer ad that they had already watched.
The Intrepid campaign resulted in over 12,000,000 impressions across Europe on a variety of social media networks.
The campaign was extremely successful and resulted in a very significant rise in sales and increased brand awareness in the 16 target cities.
“Using the power of video and display we significantly increased our brand awareness in key markets by showcasing our values, the benefits of small group travel with a local leader and the incredible range of destinations we run trips to.”
– Guy Fowles, General Manager, European Marketing, Intrepid Travel.
We produced over 30 creative assets for use across a variety of advertising channels, primarily YouTube, but also Facebook, Instagram and display advertising.
We turned these around within two weeks from sign-off, so that the three month campaign would finish at the end of December, just in time for Intrepid’s busy January sale period.
We created an in-depth live report that pulled data from every advertising platform, and utilised and merged this with website performance data to measure the clients’ goals of increased sales and brand awareness. This allowed the Intrepid team to understand exactly how the campaign was performing in real-time.
Because our in-depth reporting is so detailed, we were able to track which ads were performing best and recommend where Intrepid’s advertising budget could be best utilised. We could then assign more of the budget to the most valuable assets and audiences, to maximise the ROI.
