Portfolio
lastminute.com
Valentine’s day is a prime window of opportunity for lastminute.com. With 80% of the lastminute.com’s target audience buying valentine’s gifts. These budding lover’s flock to the site making spontaneous displays of affection, defecting to romantic locations for a seasonal trist or two.
But lastminute.com offers a wider range of products than just impulse get-aways. They came to us not only to devise a way to promote this broad product portfolio to a new audience but also to remind existing customers of what they could find.
Recently lastminute.com had created a manifesto, communicated as six easy rules for smarter living: be more impulsive, more creative, more in-touch, daydream more, prioritise and relax more.
The strategy we devised was aimed to echo these principles. We decided to drive on-line purchasing by associating lastminute.com with the most fun and spontaneous event associated with romance; elopement. Highlighting, promoting and reinforcing the ethos of lastminute.com.
The campaign centred around creating faux wedding ceremonies in Leicester Square. We wanted the event to be unique, something that people remembered and to associate to lastminute.com.
From the warm-up activity, the lastminute.com manifesto ran throughout the customer experience. We sent out promotional "bride & groom" leaflet teams to tactical locations (commercial districts and close to own brand retail locations) to hand out permission slips on the Friday and Monday before our big day. Email and on-line prompts followed up in a similar fashion.
On our couple’s special day, the fun really got underway: a 35ft inflatable church complete with blow-up organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and ‘stained glass’ windows “grew” in Leicester Sq. A rent-a-wedding party were ready to accompany our spontaneous guests down the aisle and a gospel choir set the right tone. 50,000 people passed by, stopped, looked and picked up copies of the Lastminute.com living brand book. They took part and heard the vows that included the promise to present lastminute.com products throughout married life.
Each lucky couple received a “wedding photo” with the wedding party, a wedding certificate/voucher to use on-site and a celebration glass of bubbles and 5 “magic moments” in our Lastminute.com limo. Video blogs of the ceremony were available online and only a click away from Lastminute.com shopping.
The campaign collateral was designed to work together to meet our campaign objectives; to educate, entertain, encourage site hits and raise awareness of the Lastminute.com brand.
Results:
Press coverage of the event on London Radio.
50,000 people visited the event.
15,000 copies of the Latminute.com living manifesto were handed out.
“It was a great success and over fifty couples got married including one man and his dog – Brilliant!” Mark McCulloch, development Manager lastminute.com.