‘Home is where your people are’ from Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) offers fresh perspective on Diwali travel

Diwali-themed ad campaigns invariably tap into a few standard tropes of festive advertising — among them, travelling home for a family reunion over the holidays. However, such journeys are often derailed even before they begin due to work, education, or other commitments. The dream of celebrating Diwali at home with family often remains unrealised due to logistic challenges.

For its Diwali campaign this year, SWISS in collaboration with digital marketing agency Albatrot decided to walk a more unconventional path. ‘Home is where your people are’ offers a fresh perspective on Diwali celebrations. The idea of home has traditionally been tethered to a physical location. But the campaign posits that home has less to do with geography and is more about emotional closeness — being surrounded by the people one loves and cares about. And so, rather than wait for their loved ones to come home for the holidays, the campaign encouraged people to travel to meet them instead.

Rather than position SWISS solely around its impressive network and convenient flight timings, the campaign encouraged travellers to view the airline as one that connects people and not just places. The campaign emphasised the role SWISS played in helping travellers bridge distances to reach family and friends, wherever they may be.

The target audience of this integrated campaign was young financially independent consumers aged 20 and above, with loved ones overseas.

The campaign kicked off with static posts on social media, using a mix of real world locations and AI-generated imagery to seed the idea of visiting loved ones over the festive season.

Albatrot and SWISS relied heavily on social media platforms for the campaign. Edits were made to the brand film to create short form teaser reels on Instagram and Facebook, which sparked curiosity about the campaign, and built anticipation.

Rather than passively deploying videos, Albatrot and SWISS were keen on getting the audience engaged and involved. The campaign leveraged the popularity and ease of creating montage style reels on Instagram for a contest with the chance to win swag from SWISS as an incentive, and a grand prize of a round trip to Switzerland for two. Users were encouraged to create these reels with the people they considered ‘home,’ set to an original audio track, further underscoring the campaign’s theme of ‘Home is where your people are.’

Besides drawing audiences from its official social media channels, SWISS also engaged 33 influencers who used the audio track to create similar montage style reels to participate in the trend and inform their audience about the contest.

 

 

 

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As a result, nearly one hundred original reels were created, securing an impressive three million plays. Comments and captions left by users were a testament to the campaign’s impact beyond mere virality.

Apart from wooing new travellers, SWISS and Albatrot also focused on the existing clientele of the airline. The on-ground component of the campaign saw exclusive postcards distributed at the check-in counters for SWISS in Mumbai and Delhi airports during Diwali.

On the main launch day, the campaign featured on SWISS’ global YouTube channel and the India brand page on Facebook, where it secured over five million reach and 13,000 interactions.

Through the course of the campaign, Albatrot and SWISS were able to bring to life an out-of-the-box disruptive idea. At the execution level, the campaign leveraged innovative technology to create a distinct identity and generate multiple creative assets at scale. Finally, using social media — a great aggregator — and giving the audience the chance to participate in the campaign ensured that its message was seeded in a deep and meaningful manner.