John Smith’s Travel Diaries
Issue 13 | December 2009
Agency
Proximity, Lisbon
Creative Team
Creative Director: Nuno Duarte, Creative Supervisor:Marco Barrento, Creative Supervisor:Jose Castelo, Copywriter:Pedro Neves, Art Director:Rute Sousa
Production Team
Production Manager: Michele Guerra
Other Credits
Account Director:Pedro Bras, Account Director:Denise Chung, Account Executive:Joana Lameirinhas
Date
August 2009
Background
The task was to convince airlines currently flying to Lisbon to maintain this route, given that in the economic crisis many have been eliminating routes in order to cut costs. Route planners needed to be reminded of Lisbon’s importance as a key tourism destination. This is backed up by statistics: 75% of people who visit Lisbon are repeat visitors, 90% of visitors recommend the city and over 80% state that it exceeded their expectations. Lisbon was also listed by the New York Times as the world’s No.2 tourist destination.
Idea
As a city, Lisbon is so rich and diverse that it’s impossible to get to know the place in a single trip. To demonstrate this, airline route planners were mailed a fictitious traveller’s travel diaries. They received these on consecutive days. Each dairy was handwritten from start to finish and described John Smith’s different trips to Lisbon, made over various years. On the last day, the route planners received a letter explaining “Why John Smith keeps coming back to Lisbon”.
Results
No airline has stopped flying to Lisbon.
Our Thoughts
Imagine the time and effort that went into hand-crafting all the diaries that went out to all those route planners. Then think of the income that the airport would lose if any one of those airlines decided to stop flying into Lisbon. Suddenly the idea doesn’t look quite so wasteful of time and resource. In fact, the only way this idea could have worked was by writing each diary by hand. It gives them an authenticity and an immediacy which would surely have engaged the recipients for five or ten minutes at least.