In January 2020 something happened in the UK that has never happened before; a royal couple announced they were stepping back from royal duties and moving to Canada. It was a massive story; Harry and Meghan were all over the news, not just in the UK, but globally. We saw an opportunity for travel company Expedia to leverage this mass-media event and insert themselves into the conversation. Our goal was to achieve as much PR as possible, and remind people that Expedia is the place to go to book trips, whether you happen to be royal or not.

??We piggybacked off the royal coverage to reinforce Expedia’s reputation as the go to travel site for all ages.

In January 2020 we placed a print ad directly beside editorial articles about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moving to Canada. The ad featured an image of a scenic Canadian landscape with the simple message: Canada. Escape The Family.

Almost immediately after release the ad was being shared organically on social media channels. In less than 24 hours the ad was shared over five million times on twitter, and an estimated 10 million times on Instagram. The ad had articles written about it in national and international media outlets, including Channel 4, The Mirror Online and The Huffington post. The day after it was released, the ad was featured for over a minute on a popular UK comedy show during prime-time Friday evening TV, effectively turning our press ad into TV ad. And after one week, the ad had received a total of 65 million social media impressions globally.