W+K Amsterdam and Booking.com Turn Your Crappy ’16 Resolutions Into Vacation Plans

By Patrick Coffee 

When last we heard from Wieden + Kennedy’s Amsterdam office and its favorite client Booking.com, the two had called upon some “digital artists” to turn vacationers’ best photos into GIFs and determine who had the BEST summer in 2015.

Now, the brand has understandably shifted its focus toward the year that just started, promising to help create even more memorable vacations for its customers in the months ahead. The anthem spot, which dropped the day after Christmas, has already received more than its share of YouTube views.

The movie trailer mockery may be a little obvious, but the “turn resolutions into reservations” tagline is quite nice.

And there’s more to the campaign, of course.

Advertisement

Most significantly, the “Resolution Translator” promises to do that thing that the ad suggested by turning your totally unrealistic and also probably narcissistic hopes and dreams for the new year into more feasible goals.

For example, our submission–that we would perhaps like to drink a bit less liquor in 2016–led to this super-helpful adventure idea slash video GIF thing.

The translator totally doesn’t get us, but then it is a robot. Rather than wasting the money to get a crappy, coke-covered room in Vegas, we would simply lock ourselves inside our apartment and conduct a lifestyle experiment: how much bourbon can one consume before he/she loses the ability to effectively walk the dog around the block?

Despite being completely automated, the translator also seems to be a moral arbiter of sorts. when we typed that we would totally “have more sex” in 2016, it gave us this line:

In 2016 I will expand my vocabulary at a library near an apartment in London.

Did Booking.com just call us stupid, oversexed Americans? We will choose to believe that it did.

Anyway, here’s a more comprehensive video showing you where that crucial CTA kicks in and converts clicks to sales, durrrr.

As the release puts it, “why would you want to just lose weight, when you can lose weight and then commit to show off your hot new bod in Costa Rica?”

The first problem would be the cost of traveling to Costa Rica. And we wouldn’t want to speak to anyone who would be impressed by our attempts to show off any hot bods either.

In other words, we are not members of this campaign’s target demographic. Clever work, though.

Credits

Client: Booking.com
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam
Executive Creative Director: Mark Bernath & Eric Quennoy
Creative Director: Genevieve Hoey & Sean Condon
Art Director: Jeffrey Lam
Copywriter: David Neevel
Head of Broadcast Production: Joe Togneri
Director of Interactive Production: Kelsie van Deman
Broadcast Producer: Chayenne de Witte
Interactive Producer: Matthew Ravenhall
Strategic Planner: Emma Wiseman
Communications Planner: Josh Chang
Group Account Director: Blake Harrop
Account Director: Aitziber Izurrategui
Account Manager: Caroline-Melody Meyer
Head of Design: Joe Burrin
Designer: Thomas Payne
Project Manager: Jackie Barbour, Stacey Pruden
Business Affairs: Emilie Douque

PRODUCTION COMPANY: BRENNINKMEIJER & ISAACS
Director: Camille Herren
Director of Photography: Marc de Meijer
Producer: Yvonne Knook
Executive Producer: Jelani Isaacs

Editor: Quentin van den Bossche

AUDIO: POST WAVE AMSTERDAM
Studio Producers: Alex Nicholls-Lee Mirjam Gevers / Ben Tomlin
Music Company: Amp.Amsterdam

POST PRODUCTION: GLASSWORKS AMSTERDAM
Flame Lead: Morten Vinther
Flame: Kyle Obley
Flame assist: Hugo Rodriquez
Grading: Matt Hare
Producer: Jane Bakx

Production: Company Stinkdigital

Advertisement