Cebu Pacific - Rain Codes

Cebu Pacific - Rain Codes

To obtain the attention of media-savvy consumers - who routinely ignore ads - out-of-home advertising has become much more creative. In Hong Kong, which receives just 100 hours of sunshine during its summer monsoon season, Philippine LCC Cebu Pacific used the wet weather as an integral part of a clever outdoor campaign aimed at driving bookings to a much sunnier Philippines.

The clever campaign used water repellent spray was used to draw ads onto the ground in high traffic areas throughout the city, making them invisible until wet weather hits, when water droplets roll off the sprayed surface, revealing a brief tagline, “It’s Sunny in the Philippines.”

The sunny advert was also accompanied by a QR code - known in this case as a ‘rain code’ - meaning wet commuters could scan the ground with their phone and to receive a Cebu Pacific discount code to be used for a flight to the Philippines. Video of the campaign here.

“Hong Kong summers are notorious for thunderstorms, so we thought, why not use the rain to bring a little sunshine into people’s lives?” said Reed Collins, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong, who created the campaign for Cebu Pacific. “Our ‘rain-codes’ were so unexpected, something people had never seen before. The campaign received a lot of attention, but even better, they sparked action.”

In a case study video crafted by Ogilvy, the agency claims the stunt led to a 37 per cent increase in online bookings for Cebu Pacific.