The Danish winters are ALWAYS cold and long. One in four Danes experience winter-depression and studies show that 58% would like to travel to warmer destinations to recharge, but still many stay at home. So the overall business objective was to increase sales during winter by exploiting this national state of mind and make the Danes bond with Spies and of course convince them of the benefits of spending their winter holiday in a sunny environment.

We created a cross-over experiment mixing science and entertainment trying to answer this question: Exactly how much energy do you get from a sunny holiday? We built two solar charging dummies wearing 6.260 solar cells and placed one in freezing Denmark and one in sunny Gran Canaria for seven days. Afterwards, their batteries were tested to show their productivity and bed-stamina to demonstrate the effects. All the different measurements were done for real in collaboration with the Technical University of Denmark. And it was scientifically proven that you get 101 times more energy from one weeks holiday in the sun.

The avg. view through rate reached 50.72% (90.8 sec) and the play to end reached 44%, reaching a target group reach of 86%. Furthermore, the video achieved 2 YouTube honors:

#1 most viewed this month (nordic)

#2 most viewed this week (global)

Spies experienced a 332% increase in number of Likes and their Twitter activity rose by 300%. PR value reached 5 times the PR budget. 57% more people were likely to choose Spies for their next holiday and there was a 36% increase in people choosing Spies. Finally, bookings increased by 14% during the campaign period.

Most travel agency advertising is filled with clichés of people on sunny beaches having fun. We wanted to cut through the clutter and create a convincing campaign based on a real scientific experiment that once and for all would show the physical benefits of a holiday in the sun.