Background: MakeMyTrip launched its Homestays & Villas offering in 2020-2021 during the pandemic, identifying the pent-up demand for alternative stays as travel showed signs of picking up. However, it faced stiff competition & low awareness compared to the likes of Airbnb, and fellow booking & travel aggregators.

Brief: The Brief from MakeMyTrip was to capitalize on the much-awaited occasion of the Cricket World Cup during Oct-Nov 2023, and create a high-impact activation campaign that would break through the clutter of sports advertising during the World Cup Season.

Objective: Our Objective was two-fold – to promote awareness of the experience of MMT Homestays & Villas in the lens of the sports season; & get consumers to engage with MakeMyTrip in real-time during a high-decibel advertising season.

Though the World Cup was watched by all, an unexplored segment was the superfans of cricket who go all-out to support their teams. Though their passion was unique to them, it was relatable to everyone who watched as it elevated the spirit of sports from a plain contest to something deeper & meaningful.

"Tested By Fans": Leveraging this superfan-to-fan relationship , MakeMyTrip invited the world's most passionate cricket superfans (Sudhir Chaudhary, Saravanan Hari, Sugumar, Gayan Senanayaka, and Shoaib 'Tiger' Bukhari) to test its homestays and villas.

Initially posting a selfie of their meeting, and then showing interactions of the superfans in situations such as planning trips together & quibbling over ordering food, the idea culminated in an Activation on the eve of the India-Pakistan match, inviting Pakistanis.

Since the idea was to tap into the larger, deeper meaning of sports for our cricket-crazed nation, our strategic approach was to choose both Indian & international superfans from across the world (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, England), choosing Pakistani fans for our impact campaign to bring alive the shared meaning of sport beyond borders.

With this, we looked to target a primary audience of passionate Indian sports fans who were waiting with excitement for the India-Pakistan face-off, and the less-passionate but equally important sports-aware, who were peripherally clued in to the happenings of the World Cup.

Choosing the most impactful piece for the eve of the India-Pakistan faceoff, the focus of the PR strategy was on ensuring clarity, conciseness & consistency. By feeding into larger fan-behaviour, we also extended our campaign thought of bringing fans together with a cheeky ad offering our discounted homestays as consolation to Pakistani cricket fans.

Firstly, a selfie was shared on Instagram by superfan Sudhir Chaudhary with all the other superfans, celebrating the fact that these fans had come together for the first time after cheering their teams on for so many years.

This was followed by a Print ad, that celebrated the spirit of fandom on the occasion of the World Cup, & how MakeMyTrip invited these fans to test MakeMyTrip’s villas & homestays to the limit.

This was followed by a series of films that went live on both Digital & TV, showing narratives of the superfans interacting with each other as they tested the Homestays & Villas on 3 points: Price, Service & Space

The final communication went out on the eve of the India-Pakistan match on 14th October, with the invitation to Pakistani fans to enjoy a corresponding discount code in the event of an early Pakistani loss to India.

The campaign resulted in a large upswing in awareness for MakeMyTrip Homestays. Even during the most followed match of the World Cup, MakeMyTrip was trending at #1` on Twitter India.

Fans booked MMT’s homestays using the coupon codes, resulting in a 25% uptick in shopper growth. Once the dust had settled, MakeMyTrip saw positive sentiment for the brand grow to 85% positive sentiment, with 750 million+ impressions through earned PR cumulatively across traditional & digital media.