2025 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Skyscanner is a global leader in travel planning, but in North America they are still relatively unknown. To make some noise for the brand, the agency needed to create a moment worth talking about. And come April, there’s nothing creating a bigger buzz in North America than the NBA playoffs.

The challenge? Find a way for the little known Skyscanner to generate brand awareness by joining the cultural conversation...without any official partnership with the NBA.

In basketball, ‘Cancun’ is a well known and beloved meme. It started 25 years ago when L.A. Laker Nick Van Exel jokingly blurted out ‘1,2,3... Cancun!’ as his team broke from a huddle during a playoff series they were expected to lose. In the years since, the joke has steadily risen in notoriety and Cancun has become a well established meme in the NBA community. It has become so ubiquitous that in recent years it is regularly referenced in halftime shows, post game interviews and across social media to signal the end of someone’s season.

The insight was to use this travel related piece of NBA culture as Skyscanner’s entry point to connecting with basketball fans across North America.

The agency launched the campaign in Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs, starting with the Dallas Mavericks vs Los Angeles Clippers.

As the series approached its conclusion, the agency decided to have some fun at the Maverick’s expense. Playing into the well-known joke, they bought the 100ft billboard outside Crypto.com Arena. No NBA logos, no players, no stats, just a simple message: ‘Dallas to Cancun. For great flights to Cancun, visit Skyscanner.’

With a simple billboard, they started a conversation. First ESPN posted it, then Sports Illustrated, then the New York Post, and Fox. It blew up so much, the Clippers actually asked us to take it down....but not before the campaign took on a life of its own. On Social, fans from both sides made their own versions of the billboard. Dallas fans even showed up to the game with their own home-made versions of our ad.

To follow that up, they brought the campaign directly to Canadians. With so many conversations centered around Canadian stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray, the agency wanted to invite fans from their hometown to travel to support their local heroes. In Shai’s hometown fans were greeted with their own billboards: “Hamilton to Dallas”. In Jamal’s hometown, it was “Kitchener to Denver”.

Finally, to finish what the agency started they officially welcomed Dallas, the last team to get eliminated from the NBA playoffs, to Cancun. They placed a giant billboard in the Cancun airport with the message ‘Welcome to Cancun, Dallas”. Because a great playoff run deserves a great vacation.

For the NBA champion Boston Celtics, the agency placed a billboard all along their championship parade saying ‘Boston to The White House’ – in reference to the longstanding tradition of the winning team going to visit the US President following their win.

In the first 24 hours the stunt drove over 1 billion media impressions and more than 3.5 million impressions on X (Twitter) – making it Skyscanner’s most successful ad ever. That same week, Skyscanner saw an 8% lift in travel searches in the US. All with no official sponsorship. Because Skyscanner might not have anything to do with the NBA, but they know a thing or two about great flights.

Credits

Agency: Courage Inc
Dhaval Bhatt - Founder + CCO
Joel Holtby - Founder + CCO
Tom Kenny - Partner + CSO
Niki Sahni - Partner + President
Zac Smith - Writer
Zeina Elshurafa - Art Director
Raul Garcia - Executive Creative Director
Matt Miller: Associate Creative Director
Tommy Yong: Associate Creative Director
Derek Mollenhauer - Strategy Director
Kyron Sobers - Account Director
Tino Monk - Account Executive
Clair Galea - Executive Producer
Dan Rankin: Agency Producer
Marcus Barrie: Editor
Sunaina Arora: Post Producer

Production: Joswin Media
Joswin H. - Photographer
Julian Peter

Client: Skyscanner
Andre Le Masurier - Sr Director, Global Head of Brand & Creative
Carla Sandhu - Global Head of Design Operations (Brand)
Peter Dickinson - Head of Motion
Andy Culbert - Designer
Gemma Jamieson - Senior Manager, Global PR & Communications
Johnny Moran - Global Social Media Manager
Ayoub El Mamoun - Global Social, Comms
James Rose - Principal Producer
Victoria Best - Senior Global Brand Marketing Manager