Travel marketing 2 | SunMatrix Ramble

WestJet: Ultimate Las Vegas Upgrade

WestJet over the years has passionately given back to their guests with various unimaginable experiences.

Now in their latest campaign targeting Toronto to Las Vegas bound WestJet guests, they got Las Vegas comedian Carrot Top to offer guests a special walk down the red or blue carpet. Those who chose to walk down the red carpet continued on their vacation as they had originally planned. Those who chose the blue carpet went with Carrot Top on an action-filled experience that included a stunning acrobatic display, a world-class DJ, a private airplane hangar, showgirls, and VIP access to the best of the city.

A choice mechanic that turns boarding into a story

The mechanism is a fork in the road with immediate consequences. Here, the choice mechanic is a designed decision point where one visible choice changes the path and the story. You are offered a simple choice, red or blue, with no time to overthink it. The red path is “normal”. The blue path is “something is happening”, and the reveal escalates quickly once the choice is made.

In travel and service brands, surprise upgrades work best when they are structured as a clear decision point that people can instantly explain to someone else.

Why it lands

This works because it gives guests a feeling of control while still delivering surprise. That mechanism works because a visible fork creates ownership before the surprise arrives, which makes the payoff feel earned rather than random. The blue carpet is not a random selection. It is a self-chosen leap into the unknown, which makes the outcome feel more personal and more shareable. The red carpet also matters, because it preserves contrast and keeps the twist believable.

Extractable takeaway: If you want a surprise to travel, wrap it in a simple choice. Choice creates ownership, and ownership turns a brand moment into a story people repeat accurately.

The business intent behind the spectacle

This is a loyalty play disguised as entertainment. It reinforces the idea that flying can include delight, not just transport. It also creates a strong piece of proof that WestJet treats guests as people, which is the kind of narrative that outperforms feature lists in crowded travel categories.

The real question is whether a service brand can turn a routine travel moment into a story guests want to retell.

What travel brands can steal from this

Use a binary choice: two paths create instant tension and clear storytelling.
Reward curiosity: let the “brave” option unlock the best outcome, then show why.
Escalate fast: once the choice is made, deliver the first payoff immediately to lock attention.
Make it filmable: design reveals that work from a handheld camera in real environments.
Anchor to a destination truth: Las Vegas is already a promise of spectacle. The upgrade simply makes that promise feel real early.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the WestJet “Ultimate Las Vegas Upgrade”?

It is a surprise experience for Toronto to Las Vegas travelers where guests choose a red or blue carpet. Red continues as normal. Blue triggers a curated VIP Las Vegas experience led by Carrot Top.

Why use a red vs blue choice?

Because it is instantly understandable, it creates viewer control, and it gives the story a clean structure with contrast between normal and extraordinary.

What makes this effective airline marketing?

It makes service tangible. Instead of claiming “we care”, the brand demonstrates it through a memorable experience that guests can share and retell.

What is the reusable pattern for other brands?

Create a simple decision point in a real customer journey, then attach an escalating surprise to one path so customers feel they opted into the moment.

What is the biggest risk with this format?

If the reveal feels confusing or staged, the audience disengages. The choice must feel real, the payoff must feel earned, and the execution must respect guest comfort.

Tourism Australia: Giga Selfie

People all over the world are obsessed with taking selfies. So Tourism Australia launched the “Giga Selfie” campaign to help tourists take bigger and better selfies that include the environment around them.

The campaign targets Japanese visitors, reported as one of Australia’s largest inbound markets. To take a Giga Selfie, tourists look out for designated selfie spots and capture a shot to send back home.

How the Giga Selfie works

The mechanism is a scale trick. You trigger a remote high-resolution camera from a marked spot. The capture starts close enough to read as a selfie, then pulls back to reveal the full scene around you. It keeps the human moment, but it restores what most selfies delete: the destination.

In destination marketing, the fastest way to earn organic reach is to make the visitor the creator and the landscape the co-star.

Why it lands

This works because it solves a real tension in travel sharing. People want themselves in the frame, but they also want proof of place. By engineering a “selfie” that automatically includes the backdrop, the campaign makes the content more impressive, more personal, and more likely to be shared back home. That pull-back works because it preserves the self-expressive instinct behind the selfie while restoring the environmental context that gives the image social value.

Extractable takeaway: If your category depends on scenery, do not fight selfies. Redesign the capture moment so the default behavior produces the kind of content your brand actually needs.

What the business intent looks like

Behind the novelty, the intent is straightforward. Increase conversation in Japan by giving visitors a repeatable content format that feels new, branded by experience (not logos), and easy to distribute to friends and family. The real question is how to turn a personal travel habit into public proof of place. The smarter move is to upgrade the selfie, not to ask tourists to abandon it.

What destination marketers should steal

Create a “designated moment”. A marked spot turns a vague idea into an action people can complete in seconds.
Give people a better version of what they already do. Upgrading a habit beats trying to replace it.
Engineer shareable proof of place. Build the destination into the capture, not into a caption.
Make the output feel personal. The visitor should look like the author, not the brand.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Tourism Australia’s “Giga Selfie”?

It is a travel promotion that helps visitors capture an ultra-wide selfie-style shot that includes both the person and the surrounding landscape, triggered from designated spots.

Why target Japanese tourists specifically?

Because Japan is reported as a major inbound market for Australia, and the campaign is designed to spark shareable “I was there” content back home.

What makes this different from a normal selfie?

It uses a remote camera and framing to keep the person in the image while revealing much more of the environment than a typical phone-front-camera selfie.

What is the key behavior change?

It shifts selfies from tight face shots to destination-forward images, without asking tourists to stop taking selfies.

How can another brand apply this pattern?

Identify a habit your audience already repeats in public, then create a designated trigger that reliably produces a higher-quality shareable output aligned to your message.

Thalys: Sounds of the City

To encourage people to use the train to go and explore nearby cities, railway service Thalys creates three interactive billboards. Each billboard represents a city, and each is host to more than 1,000 unique sounds from that city.

Pedestrians who walk past these billboards are invited to plug in with their personal headphones and start exploring. So instead of using headphones to block out the city, they are made to use them to rediscover one.

When a billboard becomes a listening device

The mechanism is the whole point. A city map on a billboard doubles as an audio interface. Plug your headphones into different points and you unlock different sounds, turning a familiar out-of-home billboard format into a self-guided micro journey.

That matters because the interface makes exploration feel self-directed, which is why the destination becomes memorable before the trip starts.

In European high-speed rail travel, nearby cities compete on spontaneity and sensation as much as price or schedule.

Why it lands

This works because it flips a modern habit. Headphones usually remove you from your surroundings. Here they pull you into a destination you have not reached yet, using curiosity and discovery instead of discounts and slogans.

Extractable takeaway: If your audience already carries an interface, design the experience so their default behavior becomes your entry point. Then reward exploration with variety, so people keep trying “one more” interaction.

What Thalys is really selling

The real question is not how loudly you advertise a nearby city, but how quickly you make it feel explorable.

For travel brands, a sensory preview like this is stronger than another fare-led message.

The campaign sells proximity. You do not need a long promise about travel. You get a sensory preview that makes the next city feel close and personally explorable, even in the middle of your current one.

What travel marketers can lift from this

Turn passive media into a tool. If the unit does something, people approach it voluntarily.
Build a library, not a single message. 1,000+ sound fragments makes repeat interaction feel natural.
Use “rediscovery” as the hook. Familiar objects can become new experiences with one clever twist.
Let the audience choose the path. Interactivity creates viewer control and longer dwell time.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Thalys “Sounds of the City”?

It is a set of interactive billboards that let passersby plug in headphones and explore a city through a large library of location-specific sounds.

Why use sound instead of visuals?

Sound creates immersion fast and feels personal through headphones. It also differentiates travel advertising that usually relies on images.

What behavior does the idea exploit?

People already carry headphones and use them in public. The billboard redirects that habit from blocking out the world to exploring a destination.

What is the main metric to watch for OOH interactivity like this?

Dwell time, repeat interactions per person, and any measurable lift in intent or searches for the featured routes and cities.

How can another brand apply the pattern?

Identify a “portable interface” your audience already has, then design a physical touchpoint that turns exploration into the reward.