2016 Gold Best digital destination

Agency WDMP

Client Monarch

Campaign summary

A stop-motion animation of your last holiday… on a fridge

Campaign overview

Monarch Travel Group had absorbed tour operator Cosmos into the main Monarch brand.

With plenty of value at stake, they couldn’t afford to let former Cosmos customers get lost in transition. These customers had to join in on the journey and book their next holiday with Monarch.

Strategy

After five years of brand independence, Cosmos Holidays joined the Monarch brand.

Making a smooth transition was vital. Analysis revealed 12,000 Cosmos holidaymakers represented a potential spend of £18M+ and Monarch couldn’t afford to lose them.

Monarch knew a lot about these customers, but they knew nothing about Monarch. The challenge was to find a way of continuing the Cosmos conversation seamlessly, instead of starting a new one from scratch - and to show Monarch holidays were better than ever.

To make themselves relevant, Monarch used customer data to show how much they understood each traveller and not just where they’d visited.

3rd party tools revealed a family-focused audience, informing creative work: a unique video experience for every recipient, complete with a bespoke voiceover.

Creativity

Many Cosmos customers wouldn’t recognise Monarch, so they used information the Cosmos audience were familiar with - their last holiday.

As customers skewed towards families, the story centred around the home and the spot where postcards, mementos and souvenirs end up: the fridge door.

Customers received an email with a personalised image. They were taken to a unique landing page, greeted by name as their video played.

The film follows a Monarch aeroplane magnet making its way across the fridge door. It encounters holiday memorabilia: a boarding card from their last trip, postcards from their destination, and their name spelled out in magnetic letters.

Inspiration came from other holiday recommendations, complete with a weather forecast. Their webpage had live-priced offers to recommended destinations, with the option to book straight away. Viewers were also offered a free tea or coffee on their next flight if they booked straight away.

Results

An essentially cold, unengaged email audience is traditionally a tricky proposition but the campagin delivered high engagement rates with 36% opens, and 99% of customers who clicked through watching their own unique video to the end.

The work delivered an unprecedented incremental booking uplift of 0.5%. Although the key objective was the right introduction to Monarch, there was also an immediate incremental booking revenue at a profitable ROI of 500% and £219,780 of incremental revenue.

Team

Edward Dalgleish (Planner) • Mike Cavers (Creative Director) • Stewart Allan (Senior Copywriter) • Carlo Reale (Senior Art Director) • Craig Wheeler (Managing Director)

Contributors

Idomoo (Production)