Expedia.ca's Blue Jays play

Expedia.ca has been a partner of the Toronto Blue Jays for the last six years, but it's a sponsorship that was largely activated at home games and not much else.

As with all Expedia.ca campaigns, it was looking to target anyone with a suitcase. More specifically, it wanted to attract fans who had never followed the Blue Jays to an away game, as well as fans who had travelled previously to watch the Jays but had done it through another online travel provider.

Expedia.ca decided to redesign their offering to create custom baseball packages online, which would give consumers tickets, a flight to the away city, and a stay at a nearby hotel — all at a great price.

Grip knew that the best way to attract casual and hardcore fans alike would be to use a recognizable and timeless symbol of the Blue Jays. Players come and go, but Ace, the mascot of the Toronto Blue Jays, is here to stay. Grip incorporated him at the core of all its work and used him as the literal embodiment of "Joining the Blue Jays" on the road.

Expedia.ca and Grip shared and leveraged the content on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, in addition to a comprehensive pre-roll buy on relevant ad networks.

A UX redesign was at the heart of this campaign, where Grip successfully created a dedicated site experience for baseball fans looking to book on Expedia.ca. It aggregated and simplified thousands of flight and hotel offers into an intuitive and easy-to-use experience that resulted in increased transactions and revenue.

Consumers have showed great affinity for the content. Facebook engagement rates were 24% above the industry average. The Sportsnet pre-roll also saw 3.24% CTR, while Facebook's CTR was 107% above industry standard. More importantly, the expedia.ca/bluejays page saw a lift in visits by 22.86% while transitions on the page are up 295%.