united future a wongdoody agency

North of Expected

Why would anyone want to suffer through the three-hour haul up and down Interstate 5 when they could be sitting on a plane for about 45 minutes, drinking complementary Northwest beverages and relaxing? That is the question we posed to business travelers commuting between Seattle and Portland in this Effie-winning online campaign.

Convince people who drive Interstate 5 to Portland from Seattle to take the Horizon Shuttle by Alaska Airlines

The three-hour drive between Seattle and Portland is awful. But as bad as it is, most people would still rather drive than fly. To convince business travelers to give the Horizon Shuttle a shot, we branded the drive as an obsolete, near-forgotten chapter in transportation lore. Its new name: “The Slog. The longest three-hour drive in American history.”

Radio, print, and online painted a dismal picture of Interstate 5, and directed consumers to The Slog campaign microsite, which featured 14 Ken Burns style documentary videos. Each video focused on different, real hazards along the drive and were given names like “Ticket Town,” “Molasses Pass,” and “Filthy John’s Holler.”

To reach drivers at their most miserable, we drove our Slog Mobile between Seattle and Portland, stopping at rest areas where depressed drivers could check out a museum quality diorama and pick up a brochure on how to improve their next commute. And boy did they!

19% increase in passengers during the first month of the campaign.

Ongoing increases as high as 50% per month

Incremental revenue during the campaign period ROI was nearly 30:1