The task at hand was to create a heartwarming ad, that positions SWISS as a premium airline, seamlessly connecting loved ones this festive season. Our goal was to create awareness & foster positive brand sentiment.
In India, Diwali is one of the most widely celebrated festivals and for the vast majority, it is like a homecoming. People fly in to visit their loved ones and the entire celebration is extremely family and home oriented. However, for the modern Indian, this is not always a reality. Work, education etc. get in the way and families end up celebrating away from each other.
We noticed a common trend amongst most Indian travel brands: They all speak to those who are away to "come home". This messaging is not only over-used but also alienates a large chunk of our TG that cannot make it home.
We decided to offer a new perspective. Diwali is about love, lights and most importantly celebrating with your loved ones - no matter where they are. We greatly emphasise celebrating this festival at "home", but if you think about it, isn't your "home" the people closest to you?
Enter "Home is where your people are" - a campaign that redefines Diwali travel to say "If your loved ones can't come to you, why not just go to them?". This gentle approach remains culturally resonant without sounding tone-deaf to values; achieving positive sentiment, awareness and positioning SWISS as a premium airline that connects people, not just places.
The campaign touches upon a seemingly simple message - Home is where your people are.
But getting to this point was slightly less simple to say the least.
Most brands, especially in the travel and tourism space stress on “coming home” for Diwali. We recognised that this messaging:
Given the task and what we realized, our main challenge was this: How do you ask people to travel during the festive season when they are traditionally and culturally wired to be “home”, without it sounding tone-deaf and forced?
Well, you redefine what “Home” means.
While our audience values staying at home for Diwali, it also values family and celebrating with loved ones. Our audience has a collectivistic mindset after all.
Leveraging:
Insight 1: Most Indians living abroad can't fly home for Diwali
Insight 2: Indians value celebrating Diwali with close ones and it is a very traditional family festival.
We came up with Home is where your people are.
This way, we were able to give people an emotional reason to travel during the festive season, while positioning SWISS as the facilitator of this union.
Note: UGC and influencer marketing mainly took place on Instagram.
The campaign achieved the following results:
Our biggest win was definitely, creating a mindset shift in how our Indian consumers view travel during Diwali, evident in the response to the campaign, the contest and engagements. The data shows that the campaign resonated deeply with our audience and achieved goals.
While the numbers speak for themselves, we were also covered by international and local publications.
Specifically, covered by Economic Times Brand Equity, Campaign India and other marketing pages - Mad over Marketing, Marketing Mind and Social Samosa
The campaign was also featured in Mad Over Marketing’s “Best Diwali Campaigns 2024” article and Marketing Mind’s “How Brands Moved Beyond Emotional Films To Leverage Quirkiness, Technology & Contests To Set The Diwali Bar Higher” article.
A big part of the campaign and success measurement was involving and engaging our audience - something that most brands in the travel space don't do. Our approach to the contest reaped overwhelmingly positive results i.e. over 3.2 million views on reels created by influencers and audiences, with 100+ reels created.
We came up with a concept that was data-driven, refreshing and innovative when looking at general festive messaging in the travel industry. Within this concept, we harnessed several unique ways to get the message across in an emotional, culturally resonant way. Consequently, we achieved exceptionally high numbers on each KPI that contributed to our goals.
