Trimming 2.5 Million Game Plays into Quality Leads: Travelocity

For millions of people, Ronald McDonald, the Energizer Bunny and the Aflac duck quickly bring to mind the brand names attached to these iconic characters. Many of us likely remember, too, the Trix rabbit, the Hamburglar and the Kool-aid man from our childhoods.

It takes time to build visibility for a mascot, which can add real value to a brand. Characters put a face on a product, and may quite possibly be one of the most powerful marketing tools ever dreamed up. They pave new roads for brands in low involvement categories and those in highly competitive, saturated markets, seemingly doing the impossible. These mascots are instantly recognized, even with no brand name attached to them.

But it takes hard work and innovation to keep these characters likeable and trustworthy.

Travelocity found this out when it let its “Roaming Gnome” fade from view over the last year or so. It was a conscious choice by the brand, but as Travelocity soon found out, its customers didn’t agree. Feedback through social media in the U.S. and Canada kept raising the same question over and over: “Where’s the Gnome?” “Where’s the Gnome?” “Where is that Gnome?”

Travelocity realized its gnome was more powerful that it had thought. It engaged interactive promotions company ePrize to reintroduce the “Roaming Gnome” to the general public as the centerpiece of a collect-and-win promotion currently running in both the U.S. and Canada. It’s the brands largest effort to date and the starting point to include the gnome once again in all of its communication channels.

Let’s fly

The game is played at the promotional website where players have a chance to win one of the 180 instant-win prizes like tablets, MP3 players, cameras and digital headphones. Once they register and choose the Gnome’s next adventure, they will see where their plane lands and receive a postcard featuring the final destination where they find out if they are winners of a prize or the recipient of a virtual passport stamp.

“It’s something that is simple enough for people to understand,” Andy Lee, the product manager for Travelocity Canada, said. “We didn’t want something too complicated that would appeal to a wider base.”

In addition to the instant prizes, players who collect all seven passport stamps will win one of seven grand-prize trips to one of the following destinations arriving by air on a Travelocity partner airline: Sydney, Australia on Qantas Airways; Abu Dhgabi on Etihad Airways; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on TAM; Hong Kong on Korean Aire; Vancouver, B.C. on WestJet Airlines; Machu Pichu on LAN Airlines and Cancun, Mexico on Aeromexico.

The goals

One of the main goals of the program, which ends Oct. 31, is to get people to play over and over again so Travelocity can learn more about the players. Each of the first four times people play, some general profile questions are asked, such as: When do you plan to take your next trip? And, if money were no object, where would you travel? The game was constructed to be simple to navigate and easy to enjoy. It has generated in excess of 2.5 million plays since it launched Aug. 2. People came back on average six to eight times to play, with the average customer playing more than 22 times.

“That just shows how engaged consumers are with the game and the brand,” Whitney Facione, account director at ePrize, Detroit, said.

Games like this can generate thousands, if not millions, of plays, as this game did, but the question then becomes how best to sort through all that data to home in on quality leads of potential new customers.

All of the personal data Travelocity collects and the answers to the questions are fed into its data capture systems to better segment and understand what its customers, and those new to the site, really want. For those new customers, Travelocity is working to understand what types of travel they are gravitating toward: are they last minute travelers booking within 30 days or inspirational travelers booking two-week long European vacations? That information gets fed to the marketing team who crafts and customizes messaging that includes deals and offers to pull them in for a sale.

“From our standpoint we wanted them to play at least four times so we can understand what the people engaged in this program are actually looking for when it comes to travel,” Lee said.

A viral component, the mainstay of the marketing plan, lets players share the game through mobile and social platforms, including Facebook and twitter, or email with Travelocity and ePrize tracking how often those interactions occur.

Marketing the collect-and-win game was “fairly light,” Lee said.

In addition to the viral activity, Travelocity sent emails to its more than 10 million U.S. and Canadian email subscribers. It also placed ads on Travelocity.com and ran a few Facebook page takeovers.

The results

As of last week, 17% of players using the microsite were Facebook users and another 42% of Facebook users posted about the promotion on a wall. Another 81% of players already on Facebook logged in with 55% of those posting to a wall. Some 22% of registrants were referred via email from the microsite, with 2% registering, 34% were referred via email from a mobile and 18% were referral via email sharing on Facebook.

Those who share the game or follow Travelocity on twitter get additional opportunities to play the game, which runs through Oct. 31.

The Canadian timeframe largely drove the timeframe for the game. Aug. 2, when the game launched, falls immediately after a holiday and when kids are getting back to school.

“This coincides with people starting to think about winter travel plans,” Lee said. “We wanted to make sure brand was top of mind.