Global travel marketplace Skyscanner leveraged the NBA Playoffs on 2 May through a playful, prominent ‘Dallas To Cancun’ single billboard placed directlt outside the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles to engage sports fans and generate brand buzz around game five of the LA Clippers v Dallas Mavericks series.
Objective
The aim was to leverage fan excitement around the NBA Playoffs with a marketing initiative that would bring to life Skyscanner’s umbrella ‘Ultimate Travel Hack’ platform and positioning and align with the brand’s cheeky character, assets and design.
Activation
The contextual, outdoor ad saw the global travel comparison app buy a single 100-ft billboard on the outside of the Crypto.com Arena ahead of the playoff game between the Dallas Mavericks and the LA Clippers.
Referencing the familiar NBA meme of hoops stars heading for a holiday Cancun following Playoff elimination and artistically designed in the brand’s signature pale blue colour, the huge poster’s copy simply stated: “Dallas to Cancun. For great flights to Cancun, visit Skyscanner”
The Skyscanner social feed even followed up later with some additional, helpful Cancun vacation content.
A company called Skyscanner decided to troll the Mavs and their fans tonight by putting this digital billboard outside The Crypt (this screen is right across from the arena for those unfamiliar) pic.twitter.com/OQdMZ1eMNt
— Insane Asylum Sources (@hmfaigen) May 1, 2024
The billboard itself references the long-running NBA elimination meme: an inside joke around the league that players head for Cancun as soon as their season is over: the idea originally started more than 20 years ago and still regularly features in locker rooms, on courts, during press conferences and interviews throughout the league today.
The work was a collaborative single execution campaign, with Toronto-based creative shop Courage Inc identifying the cultural insight and coming up with the creative idea, Skyscanner’s in-house brand team crafting the design and managing the social media strategy, New York based Rebel & Thorn Inc secured the media space/poster site and Toronto’s 5WPR delivering national, tier one media coverage providing an extra helping of follow-on media coverage.
The billboard had a short initial lifespan and was removed early from site rotation by the LA Clippers as the team itself was keen to respond to interest around the ad by publicly releasing a statement clarifying that the billboard was not affiliated with them.
Of course, the Skyscanner team was delighted to find out that the ad was being removed from circulation as this was a surefire sign of how much traction the idea had garnered.
Indeed, in the days after the poser was taken down, the idea took on a life of its own online as variations of the billboard were memed by both Clippers and Mavericks fans alike.
Indeed, two days later at the next game in the series, fan made posters recreating the billboard were spotted on camera both outside and inside the arena in Dallas.
“It’s important that we stay on top of what’s happening in culture, while aiming to playfully disrupt the travel space by creating memorable moments. For us to be successful, we need to punch above our weight with unexpected executions, bringing some light-hearted humor aligned to travel. From the first chat with Courage the idea felt like it had potential. It’s so simple. To have the ad pulled due to it drawing that much attention was a surreal moment. The NBA playoffs are one of the biggest sporting moments of the year. To be sharing the attention of the fans and media was a real indication that we truly tapped into the cultural zeitgeist. The billboard itself became a meme.”
Skyscanner Global Head of Brand Andre Le Masurier
“We’re always thinking about our clients and looking for opportunities for them to engage with culture in ways that feel authentic. When the NBA playoffs kicked off and we saw everyone talking about trips to Cancun we thought this is perfect for Skyscanner. We shared it with Andre the next day and a couple days later we were on ESPN.”
Courage CSO Tom Kenny
Outcome
The OOH stunt generated a huge reaction from NBA fans and global sports and mainstream media (across online, broadcast and social media press platforms): including Bleacher Report, ESPN, FOX, The Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated.
Indeed, according to the brand, in its first 24 hours alone the stunt drove more than 864m media impressions – with more than 3.5m impressions on X (Twitter) alone.
The power of the simple, single poster!