Orbitz "viral" ad game campaign

Campaign Insights


As part of an overall mix of online initiatives, Orbitz runs pop under ad units that are designed to drive traffic to specific landing pages within the Orbitz Web site. Since we know consumers do not have favorable opinions on these ad units, our goal is to surprise and delight them with an unexpected diversion, as well as connect consumers to the playful side of the Orbitz brand.

We have had high levels of engagement within the advergames that we have done for Orbitz in the past, but in this instance we had an additional challenge to underscore the notion of easy.

The Orbitz consumer positioning is that finding a low fare is so easy; all you have to do is just Orbitz and Go. How do we make a game that is challenging enough to make it appealing from a game play standpoint and communicates easy to find? The idea happened quite unexpectedly in a meeting with Orbitz, where the client was giving examples of easy, and the notion of shooting fish in a barrel was mentioned. The idea of fish in a barrel struck us as funny and we thought it would be a great context for an interactive game.

The banner ad took three weeks to develop and involved a team of illustrators, designers, writers, programmers, and project managers. The game just launched and so far is performing above expectations. The interesting addition within this game is that we included a “tell a friend” link. So far this viral component has generated 8,130 additional referrals with friends passing the game along to others, helping to make more people aware of the ad and get exposed to Orbitz in the process.

Ultimately we feel what is significant about this ad is that it uses the power of the interactive medium and allows consumers to physically engage with your brand in a fun and unexpected way. We believe this helps to communicate a more tangible brand character to consumers as well as helping to differentiate Orbitz from it competition-oh yeah, and its fun too!
-- Mark Rattin, President and Creative Director, Pop Studio

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