Project Overview

“Luxury travel company partners with scientific research institute to launch one-of-a-kind tour and greatest holiday gift ever.”

This campaign revolved around creating the ultimate, unique experience that no one else could duplicate and then allowing international press to run the story “The holiday gift for the person who has everything”. The result was huge public exposure to our most expensive itinerary in history: nine days in the tropical Seychelles, first staying in a 5-star, Four Seasons private lodge, followed by a week at sea on your own personal luxury mega-yacht, replete with its own captain, chef, bartender, masseuse, and scuba trainers.

The days are spent soaking in the surroundings and wildlife as well as aiding a scientific conservation mission which includes going down into the depths of the Indian ocean, where literally no human has been before, in a two-person sub piloted by trained mission staff.

The science team, Nekton is dedicated to exploring the depths of the ocean to reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind. Nekton combines world-class experience across marine science, ocean policy, multi-disciplinary research expeditions, multi-platform content creation and distribution, education and communications to create a step-chance in our knowledge and understanding of the ocean to accelerate its sustainable governance.

The Goal / Results

Using the holidays as an opportunity to frame the PR/Brand activation as ‘the ultimate gift’, this helped us gain public attention, specifically the affluent customer segment we were trying to reach, with next to no overhead cost, while simultaneously appearing in Vogue, Wall Street Journal and other aligned publications’ holiday gift-guides.

This also made our ‘Explorers Club Collection’ of itineraries appear much more affordable by contrast, as a mid-funnel catch-all in cases where the audience was interested but the trip quote was too high for them.

Internally, it was the first time the company had put something like this together. From a Marketing perspective the last goal was to template the deliverables in a ‘white label’ fashion to be used again, ideally every 6 months, in order to continue garnering cost-effective public awareness of our brand.

The Team

Creative Direction: Evan McMenemy

Art Direction: Tiffany Fairweather, Andrew Brennan

Copywriting: Steve English

Website Landing Page

To the right is the Mysteries of the Deep website landing page. This is where traffic was directed from press releases, banner ads, third-party articles and adwords SEM. Users could click the buttons to see further information in lightboxes (itinerary details, video and image galleries, more on Nekton, etc). Between the illustrated fathometer and the darkening waters, as the user scrolls down the page we’ve created the illusion of depth, including wildlife native to the Indian ocean that may be seen while on this trip.

Mysteries of the Deep Itinerary Guide

This is a highlight of the elegant 21 page document that was sent to interested parties with all the trip details, from a breakdown of the day-to-day activities through to specifics such as the length and width of the yacht and the power of the sub’s main thrusters.

Advertising Email Layouts

A series of emails were created for both traveller and travel agent audiences to entice both parties, whether to book for themselves or for their clients.