How Booking.com Went Big with a Musical Approach to the Super Bowl
Booking.com's 2023 Super Bowl campaign was a vibrant, colour-filled musical metaphor for the fun that can be had during the process of booking your next vacay with the digital travel tool.
'Somewhere, Anywhere' stars Melissa McCarthy, who truly owns this audiovisual feast. She is also joined in the campaign by her husband, comedian and filmmaker Ben Falcone. Both of them were also heavily involved in the creative process that brought the campaign to life.
'Somewhere, Anywhere' marks the first major campaign from Zulu Alpha Kilo New York, the relatively fresh US outpost of the Canadian founded agency. It was directed by Alex Prager of Arts & Sciences.
To find out more about how it all came to life, LBB's Addison Capper chatted to director Alex, Zulu Alpha Kilo NY CCO Tim Gordon, and a representative from Booking.com.
LBB> I think this is Zulu Alpha Kilo's first work for Booking.com - a Super Bowl spot is quite a baptism of fire! What kind of brief was set?
Booking.com> Our campaign last year focused on the fact that Booking.com may not be sexy, but we’re good at making booking a trip easy and reliable, while this year the focus is showcasing that when booking a trip is easy and reliable and offers choice, it can actually be a fun part of the experience. The brief to ZAK was about evolving the creative while highlighting our mission and key features like vacation rentals, reviews, free cancellation, etc., which then developed into a musical. We’re always looking to diversify the talent we work with and the brief noted that we wanted star power in the ad which led us to Melissa, who is amazing in the spots and really brought the creative to life. This year’s campaign has been a great evolution of a successful relaunch of Booking.yeah last year and we feel confident it will continue to resonate with Americans.
Tim> Booking.com came to us with a brief to drive brand awareness and demonstrate the bevy of amazing accommodations that the company offers. Honestly it is amazing all the places you can book on Booking.com. There really is something for everyone.
Furthermore, the client is wonderfully ambitious and so the Super Bowl always felt like the right place for them to be and who were we to disagree? We knew we wanted to go big, but not typical, and also the idea should be bigger than just a one off idea. ‘Somewhere, Anywhere’ is bigger than one 30-second spot, it is a two-minute epic musical, a social campaign, a give away and much more.
LBB> I'll admit that I'm someone who loves travelling but can get quite stressed during the booking process. What kind of insight led you to focus on the fun that can come with booking?
Tim> Research shows that most people enjoy dreaming about their vacation as much as taking it – that was the genesis of the idea. That is why the two-minute film is a sort of tour de force of booking possibilities. It is showing Melissa in a behaviour that many of us do: literally having fun imagining all the vacations we could take. It is kinda like swiping left or searching for real estate online, but for vacations.
Booking.com> Last year we began to see travel rebounding from covid-19 with an increased optimism and appetite for travel among Americans. This year, we are seeing that travel still remains high on agendas, with 73% of Americans saying that travelling will always be worth it and that they are feeling overwhelmingly more optimistic about travelling in 2023 compared to 2022.
As we looked to evolve our Booking.yeah campaign, research conducted by Zulu showed that 73% of bookers said they enjoyed the experience of booking their last trip, leading to the searching and booking portion being an enjoyable part of the trip and half the fun. Our mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world and this year’s campaign aims to showcase that Booking.com is the reliable and fun platform to book a trip, no matter where travellers want to go, with features including everything from hotels to instantly bookable vacation rentals across the US, free cancellation, verified reviews, great deals and more.
Ultimately, we want the ad and overall campaign to leave Americans feeling confident that the best way to book their stay in the U.S. is through Booking.com and that the booking process is both easy and fun on the app.
LBB> What inspired the 'Somewhere, Anywhere' tagline?
Tim> ‘Somewhere, Anywhere’ is less a tagline and more a mantra. It was inspired by two things: the first being that while it feels like the pandemic may be more behind us than ever before, people are still feeling like they have been cooped up. So it was about relating to a huge swath of the American population that are just really feeling the need to get out there and take a trip. Secondly, it is a nod to the sheer amount of different accommodations that Booking.com has. There is ‘somewhere, anywhere’ for everyone.
Booking.com> The ‘Somewhere, Anywhere’ mantra is inspired by all the amazing destinations and properties travellers can book on Booking.com - from beach houses and treehouses to hotels and tiny homes to yurts, boats and even igloos. Booking.com offers the widest choice of places to stay so we wanted to showcase that with a comedic, carefree, joyful and fun tone. We don’t take ourselves as a brand too seriously, though we do take our business seriously, with the aim being to inspire confidence that one has found exactly what they are looking for on Booking.com - wherever their ‘Somewhere, Anywhere’ is.
LBB> The 'excitement' of booking can be interpreted in a whole host of ways - why did you opt for this musical style approach?
Tim> Music brings so much joy to storytelling. A musical approach feels big and cinematic and can convey so much with lyrics, instrumentation and composition. Music also takes you on a journey and when you watch the film that is exactly what we wanted. The music approach was also a lovely challenge. Music is hard, ha. We wanted to do something uniquely original while still getting across the brand message and composing an original song from scratch was a great way of doing so. Finally and very important to us, the music approach allowed us to treat very silly things very seriously, which we feel is always the best way.
LBB> Considering the musical aspect, what was the writing process like?
Tim> It was fun, wild, tricky, hilarious and big. For us it started with the lyrics and the message. The team had a pretty robust idea of the song before we engaged an immensely talented composer to turn our song on paper into a full blown earworm track. We then tapped our wonderful friends at Barking Owl to add the instrumentation and help us develop the track further. After we shot with Alex Prager, we went back into the booth with Melissa to do final pick ups. Finally, and this is my favourite part and so rarely done anymore from a craft perspective, we recorded the final song with a live orchestra in NYC. That gave the film its scale.
There was just such intense attention paid to craft and our partners at Booking.com were such a big part of pushing for that.
LBB> Why was Melissa McCarthy the perfect person to front the campaign?
Tim> I mean… just look at her in the film. She brought down the house. Everyone knows that Melissa has a great comedic timing, which we used, but she also has a great voice and screen presence. The fact that she could hit the notes and deliver the comedy was really important and of course she nailed it. Also, we really enjoyed showing her a little differently than many of her films. It was great to really glam her up.
Booking.com> Melissa’s sense of humour really aligns with Booking.com’s humour and her charming, genuine, approachable, authentic personality make her relatable to American audiences as a brand spokesperson they can trust. Travel is supposed to be fun and we wanted to ensure that was reflected in the creative, which Melissa truly helped bring to life.
Additionally, Melissa loves to travel, which of course is always something we look for in a brand spokesperson! Just last month she took a trip to Santa Fe, NM (one of Booking.com’s 2023 trending destinations) for a little R&R, which she booked herself using the Booking.com app.
LBB> Why was Alex Prager the right director to bring your vision to life?
Tim> Alex has one of the best eyes around. Her attention to art direction in films is second to none and that is something we really desired. She can craft these amazing scenes that become characters themselves and that is exactly what the script and the song needed. Alex paid a huge amount of attention to settings, the dressing and the composition of each scene. They can almost stand apart as little pieces of artwork. At the end of the day, Alex was able to make the visuals of the film match the bigness and humour of the song itself. Her collaboration was fantastic and we felt from the very first time we spoke that she saw the potential for this to be something special.
Alex helped us create something wholly unique. I don’t think I have seen something this fun and well crafted in a long time, and I’m very grateful for her involvement.
LBB> Alex, why was this spot something you were keen to get involved in? What was it about the script that you enjoyed?
Alex> Reading the initial scripts I knew the final result was going to be really fun to watch and I’ve always wanted to shoot a musical. Having a legend like Melissa attached to the project made it even more enticing… so there was a lot that drew me to shoot this.
LBB> What were some initial ideas you had upon seeing the script and how have they translated to the final spot?
Alex> We got to travel to a lot of remote places to get all the different locations, but I knew Melissa probably wasn’t going to be able to trek to the edge of the world with us. So, I pitched shooting a couple of the sets on the Volume stage which I’ve been curious about working on ever since I saw what Jon Favreau did with it [in The Mandalorian]. It was a great experience and I’ll definitely use it again when it makes sense.
LBB> How was it for you as director to work with the musical aspect of the film? Were you involved in the music at all?
Alex> I was very involved in the music like I am with every detail of each component that makes up the commercial, but I was lucky to work with a brilliant composer who is very nimble under pressure.
LBB> In terms of the aesthetics, you've really leant into a vibrant colour palette. What inspired this and how did you bring it to life?
Tim> We wanted to make a film that felt different from other films out there. Travel is vibrant and we wanted to embrace that. Also, because each of these scenes is Melissa imagining herself on the trip, we leaned into that dream-like state to have fun with every little detail, whether it was Brewster’s pink shirt in the massage scene, the bold pink in the dog hotel or the singing lizard with the gorgeous sunset. Everything needed to be elevated. At the end of the day, we wanted viewers to feel like they would love to dive into each scene.
Alex> I always lean towards colour. It’s a quick read to express joy as well as nod to a golden time in musical cinema.
LBB> How involved was Melissa in the creative process? What did she bring to the final production?
Tim> Melissa and Ben [her husband] were amazing in the creative process. They were always available to review script revisions and build on jokes. Melissa was also instrumental in picking her wardrobe and setting her styling to ensure we got a unique look in each scenario. This was really important because each setting is her imaging a different vacation and the art direction had to purposefully feel different and whimsical and inviting.
Alex> She and her extremely clever husband Ben were very involved with the scripts, song, and visuals. Before we really dove into pre-production the three of us chatted about a working process that was very collaborative. I knew they worked very closely creatively together and I wanted to make sure they understood that I was eager to work with them in whatever way they felt the most themselves because this whole thing depended on Melissa being Melissa!
LBB> How will 'Somewhere, Anywhere' evolve after the Super Bowl?
Tim> As I mentioned before, the campaign is bigger than the Super Bowl. You can see that right now with the two-minute film being released at the same time. But beyond that, there are a bunch more fun spots with Melissa that will roll out through the spring. Plus we have all the Zulu offices (Vancouver, Toronto and NYC) cooking up new things so you will just have to stay tuned…
Booking.com> This is an ongoing integrated campaign, which we feel is important to run throughout the year given the competitive US market and really wanting to make an impact on American travellers.
While we have our main 30-second spot, which is what ran during the big game, our 15-second spots are critical elements to the campaign as they focus on product offerings that are important for us to showcase to differentiate ourselves in the competitive US market. The 30-second spot features things like a wide choice of places to stay - from hotels to vacation rentals - as well as our app prominently featured, which was the number one most downloaded online travel app in the US in 2022 according to Apptopia. Our 15-second spots focus on homes, free cancellation on most bookings and verified reviews.
The campaign will run across TV - including primetime - audio streaming, online and social channels through the end of April with a second rollout in the summer.
