Enjoy Your Trip
ebookers.com
Issue 2 | July 2008
Agency
Stephens Francis Whitson
Creative Team
Jim Archer - Copywriter;Chris Rawlings - Art Director;Phil Treacey - Art Director;Neil Francis - Creative Director
Production Team
Robin Murray - Production
Other Credits
Sarah Jane Wilkinson - Account Director;INC Direct - Digital print
Date
February 2006 - Ongoing
Background
Travel has lost its glamour and sense of adventure. Buy a flight or holiday these days you don't even get a ticket; you get an email. So how does an online travel agent continue the selling conversation once the customer has printed out their flight-reference-number email and logged off their computer? Margins on flights are tight, making the cross-selling of additional services like hotel stays, car hire, travel insurance and excursions vital to the customer profitability. And when your brand exists online, how can you make it step into the real world experience of your customers?
Idea
To answer these challenges, ebookers.com and Stephens Francis Whitson developed a truly personalised DM piece intended to stimulate a sense of excitement and anticipation in a way that an emailed flight reference number never could. They created a personal guide to San Francisco/New York/Dubai/Prague - wherever the customer had booked flights to. The guide recommended places to stay, sights to see, excursions to take. It gave them a name and a number to call rather than an email address. They used digital print to make it stand out and get noticed. They personalised everything, including the weather (according to season/month). The guide even contained an oversized throw-out town map. With the customer's name on it. The idea was to show customers that everything they've told ebookers about themselves was being put to good use to make their holiday a better holiday; that ebookers mean it when they say Born To Travel.
Results
The purchase rate of additional services and products is up 9% higher than the control.
Target Audience
Recent bookers of flights through the ebookers.com website.
Size
Approximately 40,000 mailings per month, ongoing
Our Thoughts
A lot of personalised direct mail these days just tells you the company mailing you know your name. Big deal. ebookers show they not only know your name but they know you - where you’re going and what you’re likely to be interested in when you get there. Spot on.