The World Mastercard has a Travel Concierge service that the cardholder can call at all stages in the travel process, from the dreaming and planning to adventuring while on a trip. The biggest issue the Concierge faced was low awareness because not enough cardholders knew that the service existed.
The McCann and Mastercard teams realized that all the key decision makers in the travel planning process needed to know about the Concierge and so designed a program to raise awareness and use of the service.
When it comes to family vacation planning, children have significant decision-making power and a strong point of view on where to go, what to do and who to bring. The vast majority of parents (85% in the US) give their children some say in deciding where they want to go on vacation and 1 in 3 millennial parents in the US allow children to make the final decision on where to go on vacation.
The Kids Concierge campaign was designed to build on the power of kids in influencing their parents' travel decision making and show that the Travel Concierge can make travel dreams come true for everyone.
In the US, parents are big users of Facebook. Moms and dads use Facebook to crowdsource answers, form digital friendships with fellow parents and share everything from babywearing tips to newly discovered craft projects to choosing school advice.
Facebook was the natural place to put the Travel Concierge to the test, via the Kids vs. Concierge Challenge. Parents were first targeted with video, a call to action to ask them to share their kids' dream vacation on Facebook, with the opportunity to win their child's dream trip.
The video featured a series of kids sharing their own dream vacations, all wildly imaginative - ever heard of Blob World anyone? Facebook users who engaged with the video were retargeted with an additional call to action to enter the contest.
In order to reflect the exceptional service provided by the Travel Concierge, each parents that shared their child's dream vacation received a personal thank you video from a singing puppet, with the videos also housed on Tumblr. Each puppet video showcased artwork related to the child's specific dream and the singing puppet encouraged each kid to always keep dreaming.
The lucky winner received a marshmallow filled trip to Marshmallow Waterlandia, a child's dream trip planned out in real life by the World Mastercard Travel Concierge.
By personally responding to all 1400 entries in a format that truly encouraged dreaming, creating 1 to 1 Priceless experiences, trust in Mastercard's service and brand grew.
The targeted content, deep engagement and Priceless experiences also increased overall interest in Mastercard World Card by 6%.
More than 1400 submissions to the Kids Concierge Challenge were received and each one was given a personal response. The Travel Concierge made one dream vacation to Marshmallow Landia come true for the lucky winner.
