EUROPE. WeRoad – the millennial travel brand aimed at solo travellers – has revealed its first international out-of-home (OOH) campaign. The ambitious advertising programme has taken over more than 6,700 spaces across London, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona and Paris.
This is WeRoad’s first advertising push in its new market of the UK, which it entered along with France and Germany in late 2022. There are more than 3,700 ads for the brand now visible across the English capital alone.
The London campaign includes OOH advertisements across rail stations such as King’s Cross, Victoria, London Bridge, Liverpool Street, Euston, Charing Cross and Paddington.
Across key London tube stations, commuters are met with a mix of 48 and 16 sheet cross track ads, as well as 12 and four sheet ads in key station tunnels. They all feature group selfies taken by customers on WeRoad trips to Thailand, Nepal, Peru, Cuba, Turkey, Iceland, Jordan, Canary Islands and Morocco.
Through what WeRoad describes as “tongue-in-cheek, culturally relevant copy and a mix of UGC selfies taken by IRL WeRoaders”, the pan-European campaign aims to motivate travellers to explore the world with “a new crew of friends”.
WeRoad has developed two creative routes for the campaign based on the stage of development for each particular market. The UK and France campaigns focus on the brand’s unique selling proposition of travelling far away while meeting new people through its ‘Grab your backpack, we’ll bring new friends’ creative (see below).
In the travel brand’s more established Italy and Spain markets, the creative centres on specific ‘adventures’ travellers can experience on WeRoad trips, asking ‘Have you ever done…?’.
The campaign has been developed internally by the WeRoad team, led by CMO and Co-Founder Fabio Bin, and executed in London by UK Marketing Manager Justyna Chlopecka.
Beyond developing and producing the creatives, WeRoad was also responsible for purchasing media space for its first above-the-line multi-market campaign, hand-picking key sites across London most relevant to its audience.
Bin said: “2022 was a strong year for WeRoad, as we expanded our services to the UK, followed by France and Germany towards the end of the year. And what better way to follow that up than an informal introduction – and reintroduction in some respects – as to who we are and what we do.
“Our debut in London is a huge milestone for the brand. With its diverse population and internationally recognisable public transport, we had to go all out and truly take over the city, getting in front of millennial travellers from all over the world.
“Being a community-driven travel brand, it was a no-brainer to use real group selfies captured by WeRoaders to highlight exactly who we are: a community of solo travellers who want to see the world while making new connections.
“Teamed up with our tongue-in-cheek copy, ‘Grab Your Backpack’ has been the perfect introduction to WeRoad during a crucial year for the business.” 
This feature forms part of our new Sight Lines section, dedicated to the world of airport and other travel-related Out of Home advertising and communications, writes Martin Moodie. It takes the same name as a successful ezine of the same name we published from April 2019 until the pandemic brought much of world travel to a halt. We are delighted to restore it, initially in column form, as the airport advertising sector bounces back with encouraging speed and vigour. All stories are archived under ‘Airport Advertising’ on the home page drop-down menu under ‘Other Revenues’.  Nowhere do the worlds of aviation and advertising converge more than in airports, often to riveting effect. Given how airports serve a crossroads of humanity, across geographies, cultures, religions, ages, advertising serves as a kind of Esperanto of the travel and communications world, a universal language that speaks to a population constantly on the move. Digitisation, once viewed as a threat to traditional airport advertising as millions of consumers looked down at their mobile devices rather than ahead (or up) at traditional advertising formats, has proved instead to be a positive game changer. Airports companies (and other travel infrastructure operators) and their concessionaires are increasingly deploying the flexibility and targetability of digital communication with thrilling impact. We’ll be devoting extensive coverage to this once again burgeoning sector with a surprise or two along the way. To borrow from both journalistic and advertising parlance, watch this space. * Send us your Out of Home advertising and communications stories to Martin@MoodieDavittReport.com |
