Icelandair have a product called a stopover - an option in which travellers to and from Europe and North America, can stay in Iceland for a period without being charged more on flights. It wasn't selling at the rate they wanted it to.

They had experienced that social media was where they were able to have the right balance of storytelling and conversions, so we were briefed to create a social-first campaign, that had the potential to be expanded into other touchpoints in time (e.g. web, search/SEM, OOH and more).

The main objective of the campaign was to raise awareness of Icelandair’s stopover offering - and to ultimately sell more stopover tickets to American and European travellers.

Based on the strategic findings and key insight, we created a mockumentary style series, optimized for Instagram posts, Reels, and Stories, where we introduced Hugi, the world's first (and friendliest) fictional tourist bouncer who was tasked with finding tourists that didn't want to leave the island.

We challenged the traditional narrative of saying “Come Visit” and explained to tourists that “It’s time to go home…”, which created an incredible response from viewers.

By embracing both Icelandic and internet culture, we created a fun character and narrative where we could showcase some of the best that Iceland has to offer, whilst communicating key messages throughout.

Beyond looking at existing data about travellers to Iceland, the Icelandair brand, and best-practice within the category, we really wanted to create something new. We dived into platform culture and social listening, where we found that;

1) Flying over Iceland is the shortest route between North America and Europe)

2) Instagram was where we would resonate the broadest among potential travellers (with content being used secondarily on YouTube and Facebook).

3) Instagram culture isn't as polished as it once was. We tested that audiences wanted to see more 'raw' content that mimicked the content created by influencers and content creators.

4) With social listening, where me monitored what was being said about Iceland, Icelandair and travel, we found our key insight, that most travellers to Iceland come for a short period of time - and once they are there, they didn't want to leave.

In the main film, we followed Hugi in a short mockumentary about his work, as he went on a search for tourists hiding around Iceland. This introductory piece was followed by selfie videos where Hugi shared his best tips and tricks on how to find tourists and the problems he encountered. The Hugi universe was also expanded with educational image posts and interactive stories with quizzes, polls and Q&As, allowing Icelandair to highlight some of the main attractions and reasons to visit Iceland... and buy a stopover.

In total, more than 40 pieces of content was created. 1 hero piece, 5 reels, 3 feed posts, and 4 stories consisting of more than 30 individual pieces of content.

The campaign ran organically from October to December 2023 on Instagram - and key pieces of content were also published on YouTube and Facebook.

The campaign achieved:

• +25 million impressions

• +50 thousand interactions

• +170% increase in organic search volume on "Icelandair stopover"

And best of all, there was a 39% sales lift during the first month of the campaign and a 24% sales lift throughout the campaign.

There were no set KPIs from the beginning of the campaign, but the story of the friendly bouncer has been such a success, that the campaign has entered a new phase and has been expanded to many more Icelandair touchpoints in the future.