41% of Americans wouldn’t take their paid vacation in 2015. So when travel brands were embracing 360 and VR to show what they were missing, we went another route: using humans. “Doppelganger Tourists” features two workaholics, Mike and Ann. In the film they are surprised by their real life body doubles. The body doubles also have another surprise: while Mike and Ann where working hard, the doubles where vacationing in Mexico. The doubles then play their vacation film. In it, Mike and Ann see the doubles doing everything they love to do. Ann rides horses, her double rode horses. Mike dreams of scuba diving, his double scuba dived. The workaholics were able to see themselves on vacation as well as within themselves. It was a human story that pushed for a change in behavior that would not only convince Americans to visit Mexico, but increase travel demand as a whole.

The most important factor for us was authenticity. We needed the doubles to look identical and the vacation film to be as if the workaholics had planned it. We took into consideration favorite color, hobbies, fears and buckets lists, even demeanor. It made the film personal versus artificial. We launched on March 30th on social media, specifically Mexico’s Facebook fan page. We posted published articles of “Doppelgangers Tourists” on LinkedIn, since it was received more as business content rather than unwanted advertising. Our focus was on Facebook since it’s the space where the biggest FOMO (fear of missing out) happens and where people complain about work. Also, people were able to tag their workaholic friends and those who desperately needed a vacation. We chose times when there was most traffic in each social media channel and times when we knew people would be working late or having lunch at work.

After just 15 days of launching, we had almost half a million views, 167 million impressions, a 51% increase in Facebook video views, a 25% increase in fan page views, a 400% increase in their Facebook fan page reach plus an 11% increase in traffic to visitmexico.com. From a travel industry perspective, travel agents including big brands like Sears Travel and Expedia organically used the video to trigger consideration for Mexico. Project Time Off, a new initiative created by the U.S. Travel Association to get people to use their vacation time, shared it to promote its cause. Finally, publications like Mashable and Fast Company as well as ad publications like Creativity, CampaignUS and PRWeek picked it up, and travel bloggers shared it via Twitter. In the end, Doppelganger Tourists pushed for a change in behavior that would not only convince these workaholics to visit Mexico, but American workaholics as a whole.