Great Wolf Resorts has unveiled an exciting new campaign positioning the resort as the perfect destination for family fun and bonding. It features a custom track, “Wolf Out!” set to the tune of Chic’s “Le Freak.”
The campaign includes video assets in multiple formats, running across OTT, CTV, streaming, social media and audio platforms, alongside email and in-lodge advertising.
Here’s what iSpot’s Creative Assessment platform revealed on actual viewer response to the :30 spots.
The Details:
- Emotional profiling of viewer comments reveals that the new “Wolf Out!” campaign is sparking Curiosity very effectively among American gen pop viewers, landing as both Wholesome and Exciting at a much stronger rate than the average hotel ad over the past year:
- However, the :30 spots are driving much stronger purchase/visit intent, at 64%-65% Top 2 Box among gen pop viewers vs. a category norm of 49% and 50%-51% consideration sparked by the :15’s in the campaign.
- To drive the best Great Wolf business outcomes, these :30 spots would best be favored in media rotations.
- However, the :30 spots are driving much stronger purchase/visit intent, at 64%-65% Top 2 Box among gen pop viewers vs. a category norm of 49% and 50%-51% consideration sparked by the :15’s in the campaign.
- The :30 “Bring Your Pack Together” ranked in the top decile among hotel ads of the past year in Change and Information delivery (99th percentile), Attention and Relevance (95th) and Watchability (90th):
- The creative appealed across age/gender, ethnicity, and whether or not children were in the home, which helped drive the strong consideration, and points to a broad reach strategy for the brand.
- While unaided recall appeared low at 51% recalling Great Wolf Lodge, the majority of non-matches included mentions of some form of Wolf, Wolf Lodge, Wolf Out, etc.
- The creative appealed across age/gender, ethnicity, and whether or not children were in the home, which helped drive the strong consideration, and points to a broad reach strategy for the brand.
- Viewer comments pointed to the music as a source of attention and enjoyment, with a very impressive 74% of all sentiment on the ad positive (identified via AI-enabled clustering of the 462 comments received on the ad):
- Viewers also appreciated the range of family activities shown in the spot as well as the happy energy the ad exuded.
Sample comments on “Bring Your Pack Together” :30
“I love Great Wolf Lodge and how it is geared toward a complete family experience. The ad was upbeat and fun and exciting. It definitely caught my attention and makes you want to spend your family vacation at Great Wolf Lodge.”
Female 50+
“It just made me feel the joy and happiness of everything that was depicted in this ad. Alongside this, the ad also made me keep watching it till the end.”
Male 21-35
“The commercial kept my attention between the music and different things to do at the facility. Having the family smile and laugh throughout the whole thing was a plus as well.”
Female 21-35
“I really liked all of the visuals and the music, it was very attention-grabbing and it tells about so many things that there is for kids to do at Great Wolf Lodge.”
Female 36-49
“I enjoyed it. It gets your attention. The people are enjoying themselves. Does a good job of selling the product and the experience.”
Male 36-49
- iSpot media measurement reports a favoring of the :15 spots in linear Impression delivery since launch (through 6/19/24):
- Given the much stronger visit intent driven by the :30 creatives, transferring more budget against the longer forms could be the better business-building strategy for Great Wolf Lodge.
- The “Bring Your Pack Together” :30 earned higher marks from consumers than recent ads from Universal Studios, SeaWorld, and Disney Parks:
- Potentially benefiting from a greater number of locations (and therefore less travel/time required for a visit), Great Wolf Lodge consideration ranked well within the range of these broader resort properties, suggesting opportunity to test positioning the brand as a more local/more economical but similar family memory-maker.
Consumer attention is increasingly fragmented due to multi-platform viewing, diverse brand activations, consumer multi-tasking, and poor-quality advertising. The proven way to secure attention and get your brand message across is with great creative.
Advertisers need to identify the creative that will drive business outcomes and ensure that in-market execution aligns against the highest potential ads.
Schedule a demo to find out how your brand can partner with iSpot to quickly solve both challenges simultaneously, delivering high-performing creative while boosting the effectiveness of planning and in-market execution to achieve—and outperform—campaign objectives.
Creative Agency: FCB Chicago