Supernatural

Supernatural is a small yet dynamic agency, and their secret lies in harnessing AI-powered creativity to swiftly craft impactful campaigns. With a portfolio spanning tech, fashion, and food, Supernatural is a notable player in the agency realm. Thanks to their recent campaign with KAYAK and other industry-leading work, Supernatural was a finalist for AdWeek's Breakthrough Agency of the Year and won Silver at AdAge 2023 Small Agency of the Year.

A bedrock of Supernatural's approach is feeding AI with a combination of precision data, and creative prowess. This fusion results in strategies that resonate and drive success. Essential to their strategy is Brandwatch. The Brandwatch platform is one of the tools that empower the Supernatural team to use data to create compelling narratives, resulting in engaging and relevant brand campaigns for their clients.

One of the most compelling examples was a recent campaign for a travel client: KAYAK. On the heels of a big summer travel season, KAYAK wanted to unearth what was considered acceptable when traveling and what wasn’t, to try and make the process more enjoyable for all.  The aim was to re-establish the rules of travel.

In this case study, we’ll explore how the Brandwatch platform as well as Brandwatch Professional Services helped the Supernatural team:

• Unearth key conversations around travel behavior
• Configure complex queries for more granular topic insights
• Take an innovative, data-driven approach to campaign creation
• Shape a wildly successful campaign that spurred coverage and conversation

Tapping into notable travel topics

First, a little bit about KAYAK.

KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), is the world's leading travel search engine. With billions of searches across their platforms, they help people find the perfect flight, stay, rental car, and vacation package.

Core to KAYAK’s DNA is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world through travel. Their campaigns are often centered around making travelers smarter, so people can get out there more often.

This particular campaign was no different. The team at Supernatural started thinking about the evolution of air travel behaviors catalyzed by the pandemic and realized that travelers were behaving more wildly than ever.

With so much change over the past 3+ years, what do people consider acceptable when traveling, and what isn’t? KAYAK and Supernatural set out to decode the unwritten rules governing modern air travel using social data.

By mapping air travel conversations, Brandwatch data began to unearth popular topics, serving as a foundation for Supernatural's exploration.

Exploring travel conversations with social data

Supernatural began their research by digging into what people were saying about travel etiquette. What were the hot topics? What things were mentioned most? What actions caused the most online debate?

As the team got into the research, they decided to rank topics by relevance, engagement, and beyond. This tiering system helped them determine what topics to include in their campaign.

“We wanted to identify what was sparking conversations online, so that was the first step,” explains Bianca Chaer, Communications Strategist at Supernatural.

“It was about letting the initial data from Brandwatch guide us in terms of what questions we wanted to explore further, and what topics we wanted to ask people about."

Using Brandwatch allowed them to understand what topics were worthy of conversation, and where there were questions around what constitutes acceptable air travel behavior. From there, it was all about answering the questions that social listening allowed Supernatural to identify.

Digging into the data: Brandwatch Professional Services Team

As the Supernatural team formed their initial plans, they quickly realized that a lot of the nuance in the conversations meant they would need to build out highly complex queries within Brandwatch Consumer Research. That’s where the Brandwatch Professional Services team came in to help.

The two teams worked together to hone complex queries to extract nuanced insights. These insights went beyond the superficial, delving into the heart of conversations.

The assistance from the Brandwatch team not only helped the agency get the information they needed to shape their campaign, but it helped the entire team learn more about how to use Brandwatch in the future as well.

“As we got into it, it became clear why the collaboration was so necessary. We were working with a really complex set of queries. It was fascinating to see it come to life, but it was also helpful to have the team's support to analyze the data. I was glad to have people well versed in the platform helping us to navigate it,” explains Bianca.

“It’s a partnership with a lot of collaboration throughout the process, which makes it really easy for anybody thinking about starting out with Brandwatch.”

Combining data sources for well-rounded insights 

To hone in on the boundaries of acceptable travel behavior from multiple angles, Supernatural merged Brandwatch's insights with direct consumer input through surveys. This combination of insights provided depth and clarity to the research, transforming abstract notions into actionable insights.

“We wanted to give people the opportunity to weigh in and get a read on the topics we’d identified because often the comments were open-ended, pointing out behaviors and not necessarily declaring their opinion one way or another.” 

The team used a survey company, AYTM (Ask Your Target Market) to survey consumers. They surveyed 1,000 people to determine what the general population considers proper plane etiquette.

The survey format enabled the Supernatural team to ask specific questions about travel etiquette. Ultimately, the process of combining many data sources led to a successful campaign based on real audience insights and opinions.

The newly launched KAYAK campaign focused on resilient travelers amid economic challenges.