Holiday ads are made out of rain

Philippines-based airline Cebu Pacific has created a sidewalk ad campaign in Hong Kong promoting the country's sunnier climate, which only shows up when it's raining.

During monsoon season, the city of Hong Kong is left deluged by rain, making it one of the most popular times for residents to take a vacation. Taking advantage of this sentiment, Philippines-based airline Cebu Pacific created a sidewalk ad campaign promoting the country’s sunnier climate, which only shows up when it’s raining.

Created by ad agency Ogilvy Asia, the campaign used a water-repellent spray that was stencilled onto the sidewalks of Hong Kong in busy locations. When the weather was dry, the ads weren’t visible. But when the rain fell, however, the streets became wet and the sprayed sections stayed dry, spelling out the tagline ‘It’s Sunny in the Philippines’. The ads also featured a QR code made out the rain that offered more information and offered discounts on flights to the Philippines when scanned with a smartphone. According to the creators, the Cebu Pacific site saw a 37 percent increase in bookings as a result of the campaign.

Watch the video below for more information about the ad:

Weather is such an important consideration for tourists and the ad managed to target consumers when they’re most susceptible to thinking about a holiday — when its raining. What’s interesting about this campaign is that it manages to achieve this targeting without any digital technology. While similar environment-based marketing such as La Redoute’s Le Billboard Météo — which used real-time local weather reports to determine the clothes being advertised at particular billboards in paris — took advantage of computer algorithms, Cebu Pacific managed to achieve the same effect through creative thinking. Can ad targeting be replicated in other offline ways?