Christmas is celebrated in 160 countries around the world and traditions vary greatly. Differences aside, there’s one thing that’s the same wherever you go: loved ones want to be together. WestJet leveraged this insight for its holiday campaign, which needed to reach new audiences and communicate that the once low-cost domestic carrier was now global.

Studio M’s “Uniting Through Traditions” leveraged WestJet’s fleet to send its holiday ambassador, Blue Santa, on an epic journey to six continents to explore different holiday traditions. Short doc-style videos saw Santa surfing in Australia, feasting on local delicacies in France, and delivering Christmas gifts to villages in Haiti and Kenya. A new video was released daily through a digital advent calendar, including stories of Blue Santa surprising unsuspecting guests with magical reunion experiences in London, England.

Here in Canada, WestJet engaged in social listening to hand-pick real Canadian families who couldn’t be together over the holidays and reunited them in real-time content. In total, the campaign included 25 videos from 16 different countries, demonstrating that even though we may come from different places, we are all “Uniting Through Traditions.”

And it was a complete success, generating $11 million in direct sales, which is over $12 in immediate revenue for every dollar invested, a campaign ROI of 1,257% and a 27% increase in sales year-over-year. It also tracked 438 million earned media impressions and generated over eight million video views, which represented a 19% increase in organic views year-over-year.