Inspirato by American Express

THE SITUATION:

This assignment put us in front of a real client to solve their business problem. Our client was Inspirato by American Express, a luxury vacation program.

Inspirato presents itself as a hybrid of a private vacation home and a luxury resort. Despite owning more than 500 resorts worldwide and more than 8,000 members, it faced a major dilemma.

THE PROBLEM:

Inspirato members would sign up, but they wouldn’t get involved.
Retention rates for memberships were declining, and people would often join Inspirato but never actually visit their resorts. We needed to get them coming back.

OBSERVATIONS:

The client provided us with statistics on the typical Inspirato member, but we needed to hear what consumers were looking for. To do this, I interviewed travel lovers who fell in line with a typical Inspirato member . The interviews had a recurring theme about the “ideal” vacation:

“When I’m at a beach vacation, I get really tired [of being in one place]. I want to go off the premises. [But] in Europe I’m moving all day.””

“We have two [factors] when deciding trips: relaxation and history... After 3 or 4 days sitting beside a pool or on a beach, we like to do some other stuff.””

These people weren't just looking for a fancy place to lounge around. They were looking for excitement in their vacations. A special membership should have a special experience.

TARGET:

Armed with a deeper understanding of what the vacation goer wants, we completed the profile of Inspirato's target: the adventure collector.

They are 35-50 years old.
Predominantly male. Married.
Likely to already own an Inspirato membership.
HHI: $500k or more.
They go on vacations they can brag about to their friends.

INSIGHT:

People join vacation clubs to experience the things they could never just do on their own.

STRATEGY:

Inspirato must become the home for extraordinary adventures.

DELIVERABLES:

We developed Inspirato X, a second level of Inspirato membership which focused on active adventures rather than simply on comfort. Experiences would include dining on cobra in Le Mat, Vietnam and traveling across the Antarctic.

Marketing for Inspirato X would be as unorthodox as the program itself, as seen in the above examples.

TAKE AWAYS:

I loved working on this project because it gave me the opportunity to seek out and study a specific audience and listen directly to what they were looking for. Their stories fascinated me, and the moment I pieced together that underlying yearning for excitement was when everything really got rolling for the team.

The original brief as written by myself and Daniel Davis (CBM). Please note some things changed in the process.

TEAMMATES:

Daniel Davis (CBM)

Ryan Niland (Art Direction)

David Hallmark (Creative Technology)

Joseph Hartley (Copywriting)