Vrbo offers a home away from your (messy) home for holiday gatherings

Ever since the pandemic radically shifted the ways we work, learn and play, homes have become everything to families. With kids taking classes in the kitchen, Mom on a conference call in the living room and Dad turning the basement into doggy daycare, the humble abode has transformed into a catch-all for every activity imaginable—except, perhaps, for reuniting family and friends for the holidays. So Expedia Group brand Vrbo is offering an alternative solution: a home away from home to bring your loved ones together. Vrbo is encouraging consumers to get out of the house/gym/school/office and find a place to finally unwind together because, as the title of the campaign says, “your home isn’t ready”— even if you are. The campaign was created out of Fortnight Collective, which previously created work for the brand focused on property hosts and the care they put into their stunning homes. For the new push, “we knew that hosting the holidays this year was going to be a challenge like never before, because of the ways our own homes have been transformed,” said Fortnight Chief Creative Officer Adam Chasnow. “Many people around the world take great pride in hosting the holiday. We knew they would be excited about hosting their families again, but that they would be anxious about it because their homes aren’t what they used to be after recreating living spaces to deal with the realities of the pandemic. But a Vrbo holiday home has one job—to be a holiday home, and it does it really well.” The campaign was directed by Richard Bullock via Hungry Man and Will O’Rourke. It was filmed in Australia, which had been under lockdown before the campaign was shot, so that added a layer of reality to the work. “All this stuff about the rooms in homes doing double duty was much more of a reality there,” said Chasnow. “When [the production team] started to location scout, we were seeing all the things that the ad talked about in the location photos. We knew we were onto something even before the art department got to it.” The campaign debuts today across TV, YouTube and social media. It will run first in the U.S. and Canada, with other versions for Vrbo or parallel Expedia Group brands rolling out in the coming weeks in the U.K., France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

Vrbo offers a home away from your (messy) home for holiday gatherings

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