Lonely Planet turns the platform wait into a gift list

A cross-track poster at Green Park putting the guidebook range in front of commuters and shoppers in the run-up to Christmas, in the one place a travel idea has time to land.

Travel publishing · Christmas gifting

Plan a similar campaign

A portrait Lonely Planet poster reading “The gift that takes you places” on the cross-track wall at Green Park, with a train passing and passengers waiting on the platform. — Lonely Planet campaign

Brand: Lonely Planet
Objective: Christmas gifting
Location: Green Park
Formats: 16-sheet cross-track
Sector: Travel publishing

The challenge

A guidebook is bought as a travel purchase, usually close to the trip. Lonely Planet wanted the range considered as a Christmas present instead, which means reaching people who are not planning a holiday at all — they are thinking about what to buy someone else, and they are doing it in December while moving around London.

The strategy

Advertise where the subject matter is already halfway to the audience. Underground poster sites reach commuters and shoppers on the same journeys, and a platform is one of the few places in the day where someone has a minute with nothing else to read. Green Park sits between the West End shopping run and the parks, on three lines, which puts a gifting message in front of both audiences on the same site.

The execution

A portrait cross-track 16-sheet at Green Park, read from the opposite platform for the length of the wait. The creative gave most of its area to a single book cover so the product was recognisable at distance, carried one line — the gift that takes you places — and closed with the retailer, so the poster answered where to buy it as well as what to buy.