Expedia and 180LA have done a nice job lately of thinking more broadly about the concept of travel, going beyond physical journeys into emotional, even spiritual ones. (Among its more memorable ads was the 2012 spot about the father's difficult journey to accepting his lesbian daughter.)
Now, the travel site is getting even more ambitious—and more social—as it travels back in time with a fun project around people's Throwback Thursday photos.
Between now and the end of August, Expedia is asking Instagram and Twitter users to tag their #TBT photo with @Expedia and #ThrowMeBack. Each week the company will pick one lucky winner and give them a travel voucher so they can indulge their nostagia and return to the place where the photo was taken—and recreate it.
Or, says Expedia, you can travel somewhere different and made a new memory—which seems to suggest this campaign is less about actually recreating the old snapshots and more about just piggybacking on the #tbt trend in general. However, the brand is asking the winners to send in the recreated photos with the goal at the end of the campaign of telling a photo story with all the side-by-sides.
"We all have great memories of summer vacations," says Dave Horton, creative director at 180LA. "So to promote the nostalgia of summer travel, we wanted to tap into the most nostalgic trend out there, #tbt."
To promote the contest, Expedia has posted the video below, "Back to Ocean Beach," showing one family's journey from Washington State to their old beach spot in San Diego to recreate a cute photo from the '80s.
Read more about the campaign at instagram.piqora.com/expediathrowmeback.
