In Germany, branded content must be identified as such on television. TV shows whose main purpose is to advertise brands must be declared as ‘Dauerwerbesendung’ (continuous advertising programme).No such regulations apply to digital calendars.

Our idea was to link an up-to-date weather report with the diverse travel offers from Thomas Cook. With the Thomas Cook temperatures calendar.

The first calendar displaying the date in form of temperatures. Temperatures of holiday destinations, to be precise. For every one of these holiday destinations the calendar suggests Thomas Cook travel offers for immediate booking.A software was programmed specifically for this promotion. It compared the weather data of our cooperation partner wetter.com with the Thomas Cook travel offers and selected the appropriate match.We placed the calendar in locations where people had time to engage with it: in hotels, cafés and bars. Thus we interactively connected an analogue with a digital medium and offline advertising with the Thomas Cook website.

Customers reacted very enthusiastically. The idea of linking a calendar, a temperature station and a travel agent was perceived as surprising and entertaining. People immediately obtained more information on the offers using the QR Codes - and many booked them on the spot. Since the beginning of the promotion the mobile booking traffic at calendar locations increased by up to 13%. The conversion rate from enquiry to booking increased by up to 32% on annual average.Thus, the calendar became the most effective Thomas Cook sales agent.