A living-room coffee table becomes a convertible car with unlimited miles, and a household broom turns into a diving board for a crystalline swimming pool. That’s what can happen if you let your imagination run wild and daydream about a vacation while sheltering at home.
Expedia knows that many people in the country are going stir crazy, fantasizing about a change of scenery and plotting the relaunch of their delayed travel plans. The brand, via agency Team One, has debuted a new campaign called “Stop Motion. Start Traveling,” aiming to capture the “current longing to explore and discover.”
As the name would imply, it’s a stop-motion piece of work that features a real couple hanging out in their apartment. It quickly shifts into animation mode to peek into their quarantine playacting, using whatever they have on hand to go on pretend journeys like hiking along a bedsheet mountain and eating breakfast in bed via “room service.” (They probably already made their “Bored in the House” TikToks.)
“Travelers want to feel inspired to get back out there, when they’re ready,” according to the brand. If it’s any gauge of pent-up demand, the video has logged more than 1.3 million hits on YouTube in a few days.
While the spot itself encourages globetrotting, its behind-the-scenes production also covered significant ground. There were teams from at least six cities, spanning several continents, involved in creating the ad. Team One, which won the travel booking service’s account in 2018, supervised remotely from Los Angeles and London with client reps in Seattle, Brazil and the U.K. The stop-motion director, Victor Haegelin, found and recruited through social media, worked on the project from France.
The hero ad is running in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., with additional spots on digital. Expedia’s campaign follows a number of marketing efforts—like the collaboration between American Airlines, Marriott, Disney, Delta and 70 other brands—that are nudging consumers to book trips.
CREDITS
Team One:
CEO: Julie Michael
Chief Creative Officer: Chris Graves
Chief Strategy Officer: Mark Miller
Executive Creative Director: Fabio Costa
Creative Director: Amina Halim
Creative Director: Davide Vismara
Copywriter: Andrew Crawford
Art Director: Joshuah Harms
Director of Production: Sam Walsh
Producer: Sascha Peuckert
Associate Producer: Emily Wold
Producer UK: Becky Matthews
Music Supervisor: Neil Cleary
Strategy Managing Director: Ronn Dohn
Sr. Strategic Planner: Lauren Mabuni
Group Account Director: John Coelho
Management Supervisor: Meredithe Woodward
Account Executive: Meagan Danielak
Associate Director of Project Management: Erik Howerbush
Sr. Project Manager: Claire Lynch
Expedia:
Chandreyi Davis: VP, Brand Marketing, Brand Expedia at Expedia Groupe
Adam Francis: Global Director of Brand Marketing at Expedia Groupe
Jessica Eichner: Head of Brand Marketing, US at Expedia
Fernando Botelho: Head of Brand Marketing, LATAM
Alba Bolea Martinez: Sr. Marketing Manager, EMEA
Megan Nikzad: Sr. Marketing Manager, Americas
Prod. Company: WIZZ / Quad Group
Director: Victor Haegelin
EP: Amanda Stubbs
Producer: Claire Madigan
Production Manager: Camille Lippmann
Prod. coordinator: Marion Berdoati Sauzedde
Director of Photography: Sacha Wiernik
Production Design: Géraldine Stivet, Bertrand Leclerc
Editorial/Finishing: TOM
Director of Post Production & Visual Effects: Bryan Cook
