Contiki “RoadTrip”   16 Apr 2015

Contiki continues to thrive on YouTube with fourth annual RoadTrip - this year with New Zealand’s own Jamie Curry

The youth travel leader reaps the rewards of its flexible attitude when working with influencers.

Contiki’s fourth season of its YouTuber series, The RoadTrip, kicks off on April 18. Starting in Bangkok, the trip will see Contiki take 10 influential YouTubers on a custom trip around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, sharing the experience with an audience of millions.

New Zealand YouTube sensation, Jamie Curry, says she’s excited to travel in Asia with Contiki. “It seems like such a cool place with a really interesting culture! I'm excited to meet other YouTubers and everyone I’ve spoken to about Contiki says it’s a really great and fun experience”.

Contiki will create a web series for their YouTube channel that chronicles the YouTubers journey. During the RoadTrip of July 2014 this earned the brand over a million views and more than 30,000 subscribers in one week. The YouTubers organic content gathered more than 20 million views; the vast majority of this was promoting the Contiki travel experience in an authentic way.

As a brand operating in a competitive space many relatively larger businesses are looking to leverage, Contiki has developed a strong reputation as a brand that ‘gets’ YouTube & how to work with its creators.

Canadian Lily Singh, whose channel iisuperwomanii has over 5 million subscribers, says that “as an influencer they’re very cool about – hey, make videos the way you wanna make them, and the way you wanna voice your opinions, voice them that way.” Singh has travelled with Contiki twice, joining the growing number of repeat travellers influential in the youth market.

Group Marketing Director, Alexis Sitaropoulos, says the secret of working with YouTubers and digital influencers is collaboration.

“Contiki thinks as an editor, networks as a friend and acts as a YouTuber, working with creators to provide the experiences they want for the content on their channels. It really comes down to the quality of our product. When you are confident in the delivery of the experience, and trust the creator knows how to engage their audience, you can afford to be less prescriptive,” he says.

For influencers on the RoadTrip there are no scripts, no plugs and no USPs mandated for their content. Contiki relies on providing a genuine travel experience which leads to brand love and an organic and authentic narrative which inspires audiences to travel with them.

ENDS

Add a comment