Thrifty Car Rental

106k+

Social media engagements

1.5M+

Impressions

Overview

Thrifty created a unique and engaging social media campaign with help from the extensive audience reach of Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome.

The Opportunity

Thrifty Car Rental is a global company with a strong history of running traditional display media campaigns. The company wanted to try something new and saw an opportunity to extend their audience reach with a campaign that combined the social media following of the Roaming Gnome and the brand power of the state of Texas.

The Solution

To help Thrifty create a unique campaign and showcase its versatility as a vacation planning and booking brand, our digital media experts suggested working with Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome for the first campaign between a car rental company and the Roaming Gnome as a key element of a larger campaign. The social media portion of the campaign leveraged the Gnome’s devoted fanbase and sent the Gnome on a grand adventure.

Nothing says adventure like a quirky, meandering road trip through the iconic state of Texas. So, off the Gnome went, galivanting around the Lone Star state. The Gnome’s fans, known as Gnomads, tracked his adventures on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. As he bopped around the state from the Alamo to the lesser-known Leaning Tower of Texas, the campaign promoted the Gnome’s social posts with onsite banner ads to help drive engagement.

The larger campaign consisted of display advertising and a dedicated landing page. The ads capitalized on the road trip theme with phrases like “Road Trip Ready,” while also offering visitors great deals on car rentals. Followers of the Gnome’s journey could click on ads that delivered them to a dedicated landing page. The landing page featured special deals and prices for car rentals and had a section for the “The Ultimate Texas Road Trip” itinerary. With enticing images of Texas landmarks, recommendations of unique places to eat, and information about attractions, the itinerary helped visitors envision their own Gnome-like excursion through Texas and ultimately drove bookings for Thrifty.

The Results

The Gnome’s travels generated nearly 106,000 engagements through social media channels alone. And the Gnome’s adventures with Thrifty Car Rental generated nearly 1.5 million impressions. Additional campaign components generated millions of additional impressions that helped to position Thrifty Car Rental as a prime trip planner and car rental site in their target markets.