2018 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Rather than do the usual cliché sun sand and sea poster campaign, which we knew the audience wouldn't resonate with, we decided to catch a Cab instead. A London Cab, with a great London Cabbie, hire it for a day, fill it with hidden cameras and go looking for unhappy Londoners, that needed to be taken to a world away from their everyday. The worse their day was, the more chance they had of winning an all-expenses paid trip to Atlantis for a weekend they'd never forget.

Creative Execution

Finding the right cabbie took 2 weeks of vigorous casting. Prepping the cab took 5 days with the hidden cameras and the vinyl wrap. Prepping the follow up vehicle with video and audio links took another two days. Roaming the streets of London took just one day - that's all the time we had to get lucky enough to find some miserable Londoners. Luckily London is full of miserable Londoners. We roamed around all the key areas of London where we thought we'd get good people, Waterloo, Paddington, Liverpool street, London Bridge, you name it, we went there. We picked up over 15 fares that day and out of those 15, 5 won the secondary prize of dinner for two at Gordon Ramsey's BSK restaurant and two were lucky enough to win the main prize.

In a world where apparently the 6-second film is king, our 6-minute film notched up over 8 million views. It was shared over 22,000 times. Liked over 57,000 times. It got 94% positive sentiments. +24% unique website traffic post-campaign. It generated a 418% Facebook follower growth and generated the highest PR value for Atlantis ever. +12.5% buzz and word of mouth post-campaign. +32% brand favourability post-campaign. +33% brand reputation post-campaign. But most importantly UK bookings in 2017 increased by 35%, versus 2016.

The Dictionary definition of entertainment is: The action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment, through an event, performance or activity designed to entertain. This definition sums up 'The Taxi to Dubai' beautifully. The high emotional content and rewarding pay off for the lucky winners meant that 'The Taxi to Dubai' was watched, shared and liked by over 8 million people which is proof that branded content, when done well, can keep people amused and entertained for well over 6 minutes (in an era where 6 second ads are supposedly deemed effective).

Through our research we found that the hotel experience turned out to be one of the least important aspects when it came to traveling. We were competing with Dubai! The hotel was merely a means to an end; an experience they were almost not too excited about. We needed to find a different way-in to change the discourse of the category, so we focused on why people choose to travel. Our insight was simple - sometimes all people need, is to step away from the mundane everyday life that usually feels like "Groundhog Day". Traveling allows people to move to a world away from their everyday and to step away from their repetitive, everyday reality. So, what if we whisked people away from their everyday reality to a world away from their everyday to Atlantis, The Palm Dubai.