When your holiday doesn’t go to plan, it’s good to know someone’s got your back. That’s exactly what the ATOL scheme offers – financial protection when your travel company goes out of business. But how many people know that?
That’s where we came in. Working with the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), we launched a smart, targeted campaign to raise awareness of ATOL and drive thousands of holidaymakers to check whether their trip was financially protected. With a nationwide audience to reach, we had to get to work, fast.
429,026
Clicks
13,800
ATOL checks
1.76%
Av. CTR
Planning with purpose
ATOL plays a vital role in protecting consumers, but education was key, especially for more vulnerable holiday shoppers. With a 12-week window during the peak holiday booking season, we built a strategy to make every pound of our budget count.
We started by refining our understanding of the target audience. Using detailed ACORN research, we focused on three core groups and from there, we created four specific personas – Tim, Romaine, Nicky, and Kat – each tailored to a different demographic and region of the UK. This allowed us to deliver hyper-relevant content that resonated with real people.
Creative that connects
Using the ATOL brand’s ‘Trusted Friend’ concept as our foundation, we brought our personas to life. We cast four characters (each dressed in ATOL’s signature yellow) and filmed two ads per persona, focused on either beach holidays or city breaks.
Each persona had a full creative toolkit, including:
- Video ads for YouTube and programmatic platforms
- Audio spots for Spotify
- Static assets for Meta (Facebook/Instagram)
- Google Search and Display support
To maintain consistency and relevance, we developed four bespoke landing pages on ATOL.org – each tailored to the character and message the viewer had just engaged with.
A budgetary balancing act
Balancing education and conversion, we allocated media spend across channels that would build awareness while driving action. These included:
- Display and search advertising
- Social platforms like Meta
- Video and audio streaming services
- Programmatic and retargeting campaigns
We also ran retargeting ads to bring back visitors who hadn’t yet used the “Check an ATOL” tool.
Record-breaking results
The results? Exceptional.
We smashed every primary KPI—generating 429,026 clicks (38% over target), 13,800 ATOL checks (nearly double our goal), and a 1.76% CTR. All of this was achieved with less budget than the previous year – and still outperformed it across every metric.
The campaign has since been nominated for B2C Campaign of the Year and Not-for-Profit Campaign of the Year at the UK Content and PR Awards.
