COVID-19 caused a significant shift in the travel industry with people re-evaluating their travel priorities and reflecting on the impact their travel has on the environment and local communities. Leading to 37% of global travellers revealing that they see new experiences as their top motivation to travel. Additionally, we’ve become increasingly reliant on technology to support us and improve our well-being in our everyday lives.

We looked to other personalised experiences in technology to influence how we could inspire our audience in a new way. From Spotify’s Wrapped to TikTok’s incredibly curated algorithm, we aimed to find a similarly innovative way to connect an experience-minded generation to unexpected adventures.

Music streaming has exploded, creating a goldmine of personal data that has the power to give us truly meaningful experiences. Your music choices can therefore reveal a lot about you. So, what if we could leverage travellers' music habits to gain deeper insights into other impassioned experiences, like travel?

Introducing Listen&Book, a revolutionary digital experience leveraging data-driven insights to serve bookable travel inspired by your music. In collaboration with Spotify’s streaming intelligence, the platform analyses listening habits to provide European travellers with bespoke travel inspiration.

This inspiration is served in the form of a personal travel ‘vibe’, such as ‘Calm’, ‘Optomistic’, ‘Rebellious' - each recommending a carefully curated and unique travel experience based on your music tastes.

Users could then book directly to the destination with easyJet. Additionally, they could share their ‘vibe card' on social, and even find curated playlists for travel, keeping the experience going.

The pandemic caused a significant shift in the travel industry. Having reappraised the importance of travel, a more conscious generation have emerged who desire authentic and unique experiences, rather than simply hopping from one touristy destination to another. In fact, research has shown that 37% of global travellers prioritise new experiences and adventures as their top motivation for travel.

But most low-cost airlines have failed to invest in creating a unique and inspiring travel experience for their customers- relying solely on low prices and deals. This approach has resulted in a "sea of sameness" throughout the industry, where inspirational content becomes difficult to distinguish, leading to a lack of customer engagement and brand loyalty.

The strategy therefore was to inspire and guide travellers towards novel and exciting experiences, taking them beyond cliched tourist destinations. Something easyJet could credibly do with their expansive network throughout Europe.

Our approach hit the sweet spot between data-driven insights and our desire to showcase easyJet's unrivalled European network, featuring experiences that go beyond typical tourist destinations. The specially-built digital experience assigned users a personal travel vibe based on their Spotify listening data. The platform then suggested a curated list of experiences in destinations across Europe. Users could book flights directly to their chosen destination and share their travel vibe on social media, showcasing the top three experiences for each vibe. Specially made playlists were also available for users to listen to while travelling.

The mobile-first platform launched in August 2022 to key markets (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Portugal) after 8 months of development. It received a month of paid support and was promoted on both Spotify’s platform and easyJet’s owned channels. Since its launch, Listen&Book has inspired over 150k people with its unique experiences.

Listen&Book has been a resounding success across the five key European markets.

Engagement on the platform saw a staggering 150k visitors in the space of one month, with 1 in 6 of them clicking through from their recommended experience to the easyJet website. The completion rate was 9x higher than Spotify's benchmark, proving that innovative and personalised approaches to travel inspiration can deliver excellent results.

The activation gained attention across a wide number of categories. Impressions from earned media/PR exceeded 6.7m– impressive results when considering only a €120k paid media spend across all markets.

Finally, as part of the wider brand campaign, the innovative mobile solution helped easyJet overtake its biggest rival, British Airways, as the airline with the highest brand consideration in the UK, cementing its position as a leader in the airline industry.