Wow, Iceland, for a very cold country you have a very warm sense of humour. The latest tourist campaign with a flair for absurdity comes not from Visit Iceland, though, but from Pablo London for Icelandair.
The airline is looking for tourist, Oliver Wilson, who is about to miss his flight because he doesn’t want to leave. Of course, the search allows the airline to show off some of the sights that have attracted Oliver…and when he is finally found, the coup de grace is Oliver’s indifference to his next destination – Paris.
Dan Watts, executive creative director at Pablo, added, “Icelandair is at the heart of a truly unique and magical country. So, we reframed what in essence is Icelandair’s superpower, Iceland itself, and changed the question from ‘How do you get people to stopover?’ to ‘How do you actually get them to leave?’”
The campaign film, directed by Sam Hibbard through Somesuch, promotes the airline’s stopover booking option, something it has had in place since the 1960s. This allows passengers to take a break from travel for a couple of days flying between the US and Europe to see the sights of Iceland.
Gísli Brynjólfsson, marketing director at Icelandair, stated, “The Icelandair Stopover has always been an essential piece of our business model, and something we hope to grow throughout 2023 and beyond. With this new campaign, we’re excited to offer people a fresh perspective on traveling transatlantic, turning something that ordinarily is quite generic to something truly unforgettable.”
The global campaign, which began to run across Europe in mid-March, will be rolled out in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, US and Canada. The media plan will vary in each market, but will include TV, social media amplification, YouTube and cinemas.
Credits:
Client: Icelandair
Marketing Director: Gísli Brynjólfsson
Digital Marketing Manager: Johann Benediktsson
Global Brand Manager: Guðrún Haraldsdóttir
Agency: Pablo London
Executive Creative Director: Dan Watts
Copywriter: Gary Lathwell
Managing Director: Pete Moulton
Agency Producer: Charlotte Lipsius
Account Manager: Lucy D’Urso
Production Company: Somesuch
Director: Sam Hibbard
Producer: Tom Gardner
Executive Producer: Scott O’Donnell
Service Company in Iceland: True North
Edit House: Trim Editing
Post-production: Untold Studios
Sound Design: Creative Outpost
Music Supervision: Curation Music
