The Unboxing

The campaign’s concept formed during market research, when we saw spikes in search results and social conversations around the latest tech roll-outs. We also found studies done by researchers at Cornell and Berkeley that link long-term happiness with investing in experiences rather than investing in short-term purchases. In fact, according to a recent Eventbrite and Harris poll, 72% of millennials prefer to spend money on experiences rather than material things. After gathering these insights, Flights.com saw the opportunity to remind shoppers that travel, not material things, will bring them happiness and lifetime memories.

The full-scale campaign was developed in time for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X releases, and included a parody video based on famous “unboxing” clips, along with a webpage developed in-house to show comparisons between material things and the price of vacation experiences. So far, the campaign has resulted in 770,000 views of the video, a 153% increase in new YouTube subscribers, a 50% increase in traffic to the experience pages, and a 291% increase in social traffic.