Orbitz Bets on Surreal Comedy to Sell Instant Rewards
Orbitz launched "Just Like That" in March 2019, a US film campaign created by Havas Chicago that uses surreal, unexpected visual comedy to communicate the immediacy of earning rewards through Orbitz Rewards, with three distinct spots breaking in market on March 11, 2019, according to Reelchicago.
The campaign's central mechanic is deceptively simple. The phrase "just like that" anchors each execution, accompanying a visual payoff in which something improbable or absurd occurs at the precise moment a traveller books or benefits from Orbitz Rewards. The creative device transforms what could be a dry loyalty programme message into a series of memorable, slightly unsettling comic vignettes, according to Adsoftheworld. One spot, as reported by Ads of the World, features a hotel clerk presenting a platter containing a human hand — a deliberately off-kilter image designed to make the idea of instant gratification land with force and unexpectedness rather than polished warmth, according to Mediapost.
Three media assets were produced for the campaign, all in the film format. The work operates squarely within the travel and leisure category, targeting US consumers at the moment they consider booking accommodation or flights online. Reel Chicago, covering the launch on March 13, 2019, characterised the work as "pretty fun" — a signal that the campaign's tonal register, dry and surreal rather than aspirational, distinguished it from the category's dominant visual language of sun-drenched beaches and smiling families. A second iteration of the platform, titled "Just Like What?", followed shortly after, extending the same creative logic with an added layer of self-aware absurdity, as noted in trade coverage reported by Ads of the World. Together the two executional phases confirm that Havas and Orbitz conceived "Just Like That" not as a one-off spot but as a sustained creative platform for the brand's rewards proposition in the United States, according to Scribd.
Orbitz operates in one of the most competitive digital categories in the United States. The online travel agency sector faced significant consolidation pressure by 2019, with Expedia Group — which owns Orbitz following its 2015 acquisition — competing directly against Booking Holdings, the parent of Booking.com and Priceline, for share of a market where loyalty differentiation had become a primary battleground. In this environment, a campaign centred on the speed and ease of rewards accumulation addressed a genuine consumer pain point: the perception that travel loyalty programmes are complicated, slow to pay out, or opaque in their value.
Online travel channels approached roughly half of worldwide travel sales by 2019, according to Hengce Research, with single-digit annual growth rates expected through 2022. Desktop devices accounted for the majority of online travel bookings at that time, according to Finance Yahoo, meaning the audience Orbitz needed to reach was engaged in deliberate, screen-based research and comparison behaviour rather than impulsive mobile browsing. The "Just Like That" platform speaks directly to that mindset: it reframes the rewards moment as immediate and almost magical, countering the friction that competitive alternatives such as Hotels.com Rewards and Expedia Rewards also promised to eliminate.
The strategic insight Havas Chicago identified is that speed itself can be dramatised rather than simply asserted. Rather than showing a rewards balance accumulating or a checkout screen confirming points, the campaign externalises the feeling of instant benefit through visual absurdity. The surreal register also serves a secondary strategic function: it signals confidence. A brand willing to be strange on camera is a brand that does not need to resort to price comparison anxiety or competitive fear-mongering to make its case in the United States market.
Mathery directed the campaign. Mathery is the Milan-based directing duo of Erika Zorzi and Matteo Sangalli, whose work across commercial and artistic projects is characterised by controlled visual eccentricity and precise comic timing — qualities that align closely with what the "Just Like That" scripts demanded, as documented by Ads of the World and Reel Chicago.
The production was handled by 1stAveMachine, a New York-based production company with a track record in visually inventive commercial work. Post-production was completed by Optimus, with Mike Berg serving as editor — a credit reported by Ads of the World. Music composition was handled by Asche & Spencer, whose score would have been instrumental in calibrating the tonal register between deadpan and absurdist across all three spots.
The creative team at Havas Chicago was led by Group Creative Director Lewis McVey and Creative Director Chelsea Berger, with the campaign conceived by Senior Copywriter Kiley Saunders and Art Director Miles Beauseigneur, as reported by Reel Chicago. Senior Producer Deja Von Ende oversaw production from the agency side, with Adam Burtaine and Kevin Oh also holding roles within the Havas Chicago team on this project, as documented by Ads of the World.
The decision to use a directing duo known for surrealist visual grammar was not incidental. The human hand on a hotel platter — the campaign's most commented-upon image — requires precise staging and tonal control to read as comic rather than disturbing. Mathery's direction holds the absurdist moment just long enough to register before releasing it, a technique that depends on editorial rhythm as much as camera work. The collaboration between Kiley Saunders and Miles Beauseigneur at the concept stage and Mathery's direction at the production stage produced a campaign whose visual language is internally consistent across all three assets.
No verified performance data for the "Just Like That" campaign is publicly available. No figures for view counts, booking uplift, brand recall, or Orbitz Rewards enrolment attributed to the campaign have been reported by Reel Chicago, Ads of the World, or any other named trade source consulted in the preparation of this analysis.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several characteristics associated with effective awareness-stage travel advertising in the United States. The creative platform is built around a single transferable verbal device — "just like that" — that functions as both a tagline and a narrative engine, making it scalable across multiple executions without repetition fatigue. The existence of a second iteration, "Just Like What?", reported by Ads of the World, confirms that the platform was extended in market, which typically reflects internal confidence in early performance signals even when those signals are not disclosed publicly.
The surreal creative register sets the campaign apart from category norms dominated by aspirational imagery, which carries a structural risk — alienating audiences expecting warmth — and a structural reward: distinctiveness in a saturated media environment. For a brand competing against Expedia Rewards and Hotels.com Rewards within the same corporate family, achieving perceptual separation through tone rather than product features is a legitimate strategic choice, though its long-term effectiveness depends on consistent platform investment that the public record does not confirm or deny.
Clapboard Score: 63/100. The campaign earns credit for creative distinctiveness and a coherent platform logic, with the score reflecting the absence of documented results and a creative ambition that, while genuine, does not fully resolve the tension between absurdist tone and functional rewards communication.
The Orbitz "Just Like That" campaign is a 2019 US film campaign created by Havas Chicago. It uses surreal visual comedy to dramatise the immediacy of earning rewards through Orbitz Rewards. Three spots broke in market on March 11, 2019, with a second iteration titled "Just Like What?" following shortly after, as reported by Ads of the World.
The campaign was conceived by Senior Copywriter Kiley Saunders and Art Director Miles Beauseigneur at Havas Chicago. Group Creative Director Lewis McVey and Creative Director Chelsea Berger led the creative team, with Senior Producer Deja Von Ende overseeing production, as reported by Reel Chicago and Ads of the World.
Mathery directed the campaign. Mathery is the directing duo of Erika Zorzi and Matteo Sangalli, working through production company 1stAveMachine. Editor Mike Berg handled post-production at Optimus, with music by Asche and Spencer, as documented by Ads of the World and Reel Chicago.
The campaign uses the phrase "just like that" as both a tagline and a narrative engine, pairing it with surreal visual payoffs to communicate instant rewards. One spot features a hotel clerk presenting a human hand on a platter, a deliberately absurdist image reported by Ads of the World as emblematic of the campaign's tonal register.
The Orbitz "Just Like That" campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects genuine creative distinctiveness and a coherent platform logic built around the Orbitz Rewards proposition, offset by the absence of publicly documented performance results and an unresolved tension between surreal tone and functional communication.
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