48 Hours: In Association with Opodo

Brief: Position Opodo as the number one choice for online travel and move Opodo from being a flight portal to a full service agent.

Objectives:

• Package focus; promote their recently acquired Quest Travel
• Create a community and a close association with Independent’s audience
• Drive consumers to Opodo’s website
• Increase awareness of Opodo and their sales

Campaign | Print:

The Independent’s 48 Hours is one of our iconic and most respected brands. We offered Opodo exclusive sponsorship and ownership of this brand and it’s content over a twelve month period (52 issues).

The Independent Traveller produced a series of 52 ‘key priority locations’ from travel writer Simon Calder’s original choice of recommended Opodo destinations. Simon worked closely with Opodo to develop a list that delivered for its customers. This gave Opodo the ability to manipulate the destinations to fit in with their 2007 promotional calendar.

Before we went live, Simon Calder confirmed all 52 Opodo destinations and the issue dates that they will be appearing in.

Prior to the 52 destinations being published we worked with Opodo to tie in with the editorial and produce a series of offers that related to the featured destinations that our readers would respond to.

Over the 52 week period these features would run along the bottom of the 48 hours centre spread in The Traveller.

Online:

The Independent created an interactive version of the off-line campaign on www.independent.co.uk. Hosted on our travel channel, we created high levels of domination on the travel site and ownership of the 48 Hours site.

To ensure that Opodo stood out as the new sponsors of the 48 hours site we increased the branding visuals. Firstly, we maximised the visuals of the sponsorship brand and secondly, drove direct sales through the landing page. The Opodo logo was also displayed in prime visual locations.

Independent Readers’ View of Opodo:

“It’s a good way of expanding ones knowledge of our world”

“Cutting edge of city break travel”

“A quality firm linked to a quality newspaper”

“Well-established company, with wide range of flight etc options and a sound knowledge of cities that it offers flights to. Would feel confidant using Opodo due to association with The Independent”

“Opodo offers the range of travel options that Independent readers are looking for”

“Well-established company, with wide range of flight etc options and a sound knowledge of cities that it offers flights too. Would feel confident using Opodo due to association with The Independent”

“Opodo know how to enjoy a city, the best places to go and the things to see. It tells us they have done their research and judging by the pages, that they would be a good company to book with when planning a city break”

“It suggests that its a trustworthy and adventurous company; something I would relate to the independent newspaper itself”

“It is committed to providing a high quality service. It’s the only website I know that provides a huge amount of travel information”