Great Wolf Lodge asked our team to help enhance their “Strengthen the Pack" messaging. We wanted to encourage families to bond and connect before their stay, building anticipation and excitement. The goal was to generate buzz around booking a Great Wolf getaway and collect shareable UGC. Overall, we aimed to drive impressions and encourage engagement with followers, new and existing.
"Surprise! You're Going to Great Wolf" is a phrase every family loves to hear. The memories of being pulled out of school, waking up to a surprise trip, or unwrapping a gift with tickets to the lodge are special moments that will stick with families for a lifetime. We tapped into that magic and amplified the special feeling of telling your family you're going to Great Wolf Lodge on social media.
This campaign aimed to extend and enhance the family getaway by curating experiences around two key consumer journey moments: revealing the moment of booking and enhancing the journey of road-tripping to the lodge.
We launched the campaign in August of 2023, by contracting "creator families" to capture lo-fi social assets highlighting critical touchpoints throughout their trip, including the surprise aspect, the road trip to the lodge, activities at the lodge, and a final wrap-up post. These assets were shared across Great Wolf's channels, inviting families at home to join in on the fun by sharing their own UGC to enter the sweepstakes. To further deepen the brand's relationship with the social community and celebrate the "Strengthen The Pack" ethos, we amplified our campaign messaging by re-sharing our favorite "Surprise" submission content to owned pages.
We did not want to exclude or alienate our full audience, seeing as it required an already booked trip to the lodge to enter. With that in mind, we activated a tiered prizing structure to include all members of our community:
Tier 1 — Surprise & Delight Prizes: Gift cards and branded swag distributed throughout the campaign
Tier 2 — Monthly Prizes: Fully-comped Great Wolf Lodge two-night stay
Tier 3 — Grand Prize: Fully-comped two-night stay at Great Wolf Lodge + $1,000. Additionally, each previous winner will get to gift a deserving family of their choice a two-night stay.
Every month during the campaign, we awarded our giveaway winners an all-expenses paid trip to Great Wolf Lodge, announced by our beloved mascot, Wiley Wolf!
To conclude 2023’s campaign, we compiled a celebratory highlight reel, including the best UGC videos from tagged "Surprise!" moments, packing/planning moments, road trip moments, and at-lodge moments. As the grand prize, each of our winners could select one deserving family and gift them a trip to the lodge. We announced the grand prize winners as part of this campaign wrap-up.
Introducing a journey of surprise, delight, and pure magic - our "Surprise! You’re Going To Great Wolf" campaign captivated the hearts and imaginations of families across the US. With 22 locations spanning the west to east coasts, families from all over were able to partake in this dynamic campaign on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. After our August 2023 launch, we published 146 “Surprise, You’re Going to Great Wolf” posts across all platforms. This resulted in over 5.65M impressions and 52K campaign engagements. Facebook generated the most impressions at 1.16m, and Instagram received the most engagements at 19k. TikTok also exhibited strong performance, achieving an impressive engagement rate of 2.58%. The launch post, aimed at informing our audience about the exciting Surprise campaign, achieved the top spot across all activated platforms. Great Wolf was blown away by our efforts and results, electing to partner with us to further expand the “Surprise” campaign in 2024. In summary, our success serves as a testament to the power of family, creativity, engagement, and strategic partnership, laying the foundation for even deeper connections with our community in the year ahead.
