As a famous late night comedian, James Corden can afford to go on vacation just about anywhere in the world. But according to this new Chase Bank campaign, The Late Late Show host is just so busy, he needs some advice on how to spend his precious time off.
The campaign sends a handful of rewards cardmembers for dining, transportation, and accommodation on every continent—even Antarctica. Created by agency Droga5, it’s an impressively elaborate product demo, essentially showing–through the jokey Corden premise–the scope of perks with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
President of Chase Branded Cards Pam Codispoti says the campaign aims to shine a spotlight on their customers and the travel experiences they can enjoy while using their card across seven continents. “Research told us that millennials are evolving the way they define being ‘rich’– they don’t define success by the things they’ve accumulate but rather by the rich experiences they have collected,” says Codispoti. “More than half of Reserve cardmembers are millennials and with Sapphire Reserve they can travel the way they want and be rewarded for it, no matter where they are in the world.”
Droga5 partner and executive creative director Duncan Marshall says following last year’s ‘Reserve What’s Next’ campaign, they wanted to continue James Corden’s conversations with interesting people in the world of travel, but this time celebrate the cardmembers themselves as they explore amazing experiences on all seven continents.
“We recognized that consumers don’t necessarily look to banks for inspiration into how they live their lives, but for the tools and advice to help them live them.” says Marshall. “And so we worked with Chase to focus our creative on the types of experiences Chase Sapphire Reserve members are already after, demonstrated the dining, travel, and accommodation benefits of the card, and then stepped out of the way to allow the genuine experiences of our traveling cardmembers come to life.”
While it’s a fun idea, made funny with Corden, the campaign’s biggest weakness is not giving the rest of us a longer look at the cardmembers’ travel experiences. It’s a concept–sending people out into the world to report back on wild adventures–perfectly suited for expanded brand content, giving the rest of us a closer look at that gorilla retreat in Uganda, or sand-boarding in the Chilean desert. But here, we get a unique idea, dressed down in a standard advertising format. The brand says it is working to build mini travel guides for each of the locations featured in the spot, but it would still be cool if those were expanded video guides we can only imagine Corden would get.
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