Working with Visit Britain and Tripadvisor, Pepper developed a travel campaign targeting key audiences in Europe post-pandemic. They collaborated with a top German travel creator with the aim to put a spotlight on some of the lesser-known gems in Great Britain. The campaign produced some stunning results, and Pepper have shared insight into what made this collaboration such a success…
What inspired the concept of seeing Great Britain differently, and how was it implemented?
Following a pandemic, travel disruption, and global disconnect, VisitBritain knew there was an opportunity to reintroduce Britain to key audiences, like they had never seen it before.
Tripadvisor intelligence presented pre-conceptions of Britain as confined and capital-led: travellers were not feeling inspired to see all of what Britain had to offer. Perhaps, because they simply did not know?
Britain is filled with iconic sights, culture, and activities, but the problem is that most tourists would visit London, Bath, and Edinburgh, and call it a day. We wanted to demonstrate some not-so-common routes to French and German residents, so decided to centre this activity around a hero video piece, in the form of a road-trip across Britain.
We needed to create content that would be suitable both for the influencer’s own channel to maintain authenticity, as well as for placements including OOH, Website, Email, Social and Digital.
Pepper used proprietary InfluenceIQ methodology to not only identify suitable talent demographically, but also qualify talent through discussing the creator’s experience. Questions asked included country and city figures, quality of content (to prove suitability for paid media), languages spoken (for regional targeting), and ability to drive (to bring our road-trip vision to life). Tripadvisor’s destination insights were instrumental in planning the trip’s route, and activities to showcase.
Michael Kagerer is a high-quality German travel creator, speaking German, French and English fluently. He has a full drivers licence, and has never visited Britain before, giving us the ultimate authentic experience. We planned KPIs that not only reflected our need for hero assets, but optimised the opportunity we had with Michael to speak with his organic audience through Reel and Story content too.
Michael’s passion for photography and video meant that all the content captured on the shoot whether it be for hero video or BTS, was all woven into the creative.
How did you select the destinations featured in this campaign?
Using Tripadvisor’s traveller insights, we chose destinations in Britain that weren’t necessarily on the radar for French and German tourists.
Our aim was to surprise and delight experience-seeking travellers with places they may not have considered, capturing the full breadth of what Britain has to offer. Each location was chosen for its unique cultural experiences, scenic landscapes, and potential to inspire audiences to discover more than the typical tourist path.
What was the greatest challenge in presenting a fresh perspective on well-known locations?
One of the main challenges was reminagining well-known places in a way that felt new and inviting. Even iconic spots featured in the campaign had to come across differently to match the campaign’s fresh perspective.
On top of that, the winter weather added its own twist – Storm Eunice certainly tested us! But with Michael’s creative eye, along with our team’s approach to content production ensured that we highlighted each location with authenticity and a unique lens. It was all about balancing the familiar with the unexpected to give our audience a fresh take on Great Britain.
How did the campaign encourage audiences to connect more deeply with local culture?
Considering Michael’s artistic eye and style, we aimed to use this campaign to empower and elevate his vision, rather than overwrite and lose authenticity.
Content was designed to feel co-produced with Michael, with assets supplied to cover both Michael’s own channels, and for the wider planned placements for this campaign across Tripadvisor’s site, CRM, digital, and OOH activities. Content was optimised for each localised audience’s language.
Our call to action for the entire campaign pointed towards a dedicated landing page on Tripadvisor, which we populated with assets from Michael’s trip, including testimonial, interactive route tips to engage with destinations that Michael experienced on his journey, and a sweepstakes competition for audiences to enter to win a holiday in Britain worth €5,000.
We call this methodology the ‘Editorial Exchange‘ – optimising the user’s journey post-click. By ensuring that the influencer is present through the CTA’s destination such as on a landing page, audiences can avoid that ‘supermarket effect’ feeling – dazed by the new page, where they don’t remember what they came into the ‘shop’ for in the first place. Instead, they are greeted by an extension of the editorial content they were just enjoying, and that had motivated them to click in the first place. We can harness and build trust through the entire funnel of awareness, click, and beyond.
It’s rare that a travel campaign can prove so measurable. Thanks to planning, econometrics, and Tripadvisor’s wealth of data past and present, we were able to see YoY impact.
The result? An incredible 12.2 ROI from campaign-exposed users.
To measure awareness, we pulled data comparing unique lookers to our featured destinations YoY.
We saw an 8%+ uplift overall – with some destinations seeing 69%+.
For conversions via bookings data, we saw a 15% increase YoY, with some as high as 113%+.
The campaign delivered 195%+ booking intent uplift.
Michael’s content alone across Organic and Boosted delivered:
- 21,599,235 Impressions (+90% higher than KPI)
- 9,625,202 Engagements (+4,124%)
- 173,411 Clicks (+117%)
- CTR: 0.8% (+14%)
- CPM: £4.84 (45% lower than KPI)
The OOH campaign achieved estimated 19.1m views, 2.57m unique.
The email campaign achieved an open rate of 43%, against 30% benchmark, and drove 2.6% CTR against 1.4% benchmark.
With a combination of all traffic drivers, the campaign drove 112,285,111 impressions, 166,942 clicks, and a CTR of 0.15%.
Our sweepstakes received almost 48,000 entries, capturing email addresses primed for retargeting, and rewarding one lucky person with the trip of a lifetime, to See Great Britain Differently for themselves.
Are there plans for similar travel campaigns in the future?
Yes, absolutely! This campaign was seen as a great success for our client, and we are already in talks to plan future partnerships that celebrate the power and versatility of influencers within travel marketing.
We absolutely love working in the travel and tourism space and have seen tremendous success with our campaigns for brands in this sector. We’d encourage anyone in the industry to get in touch for our insights around how we build impactful, creative social strategies with measurable results.