Finding Liverpool - Expedia | Clapboard Ad Archive

Expedia’s 2024 Finding Liverpool campaign, developed with Anomaly, demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of how sports marketing can be harnessed by travel brands to activate emotional and experiential engagement at global scale, pairing the world’s passion for football with the tangible offerings of modern tourism. As the official travel partner of Liverpool FC, Expedia positions itself as the enabler of authentic and meaningful journeys by anchoring its message in a three-part film series fronted by key figures from both the men’s and women’s teams—including Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Wataru Endō, Shanice van de Sanden, Missy Bo Kearns, and Fūka Nagano—whose personal stories and on-camera participation build a bridge between the iconic identity of Liverpool the club and the lived reality of Liverpool the city. The creative centers on a universal premise: that sporting allegiance transcends geography, culture, and language, manifesting a global family of fans whose belonging is brought to life and reinforced by real-world experiences in Liverpool itself. By threading the club’s multicultural legacy and its deep-rooted community spirit through bespoke content distributed across Expedia's paid and owned digital channels, partner platforms, and targeted out-of-home placements, the campaign operationalizes its partnership to both expand reach and drive measurable behavioral outcomes for travel. Its strategic partnership with Virgil van Dijk extends the resonance of the work, with van Dijk not only appearing in the core content but also authoring a curated Liverpool travel guide that injects a layer of personal credibility and relatability, further amplified via social and PR activations. The creative choice to deploy a roster of recurring Liverpool personalities as ongoing brand ambassadors is what Clapboard’s taxonomy identifies as FORMAT#8—Ongoing Characters or Celebrities, utilizing the fame and cultural capital of these players to underpin brand recall and cultivate an ongoing narrative voice across both episodic and always-on content. The campaign’s distribution strategy and layered storytelling invite fans to join the Liverpool family not only in spirit but in lived experience, with Expedia Live functioning as both content destination and conversion driver, elegantly merging the emotional currency of fandom with the practical infrastructure of travel commerce. The campaign earns 74/100 in Clapboard's global creative archive. This campaign signals a growing sophistication in how travel platforms leverage sports partnerships, demonstrating the value of celebrities as narrative anchors for sustained branded storytelling within a highly competitive category.