Vrbo x Fiesta Bowl

In 2022, Vrbo announced it was the newest title sponsor of the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, a College Football Playoff bowl game. Though we’d previously been a sponsor of the Citrus Bowl for five years, moving to a College Football Playoff bowl game allowed us to expand our reach and brand awareness. We announced the partnership by hosting reporters, athletes, and influencers at a luxury Vrbo in the heart of Scottsdale, Arizona. We continued to reach new college football fans by utilizing relatable video cut-downs of our TV commercial showing fans and their game day traditions while using paid boosting to target fans of college football. On game day, we built out ‘fan caves’ designed to look like Vrbo rentals that were set up outside the stadium where each fan was able to get game-day merch and have their photo taken or posted on social media using #VrboFiestaBowl.

To drive our brand messaging around ‘togetherness,’ Social Media and PR launched a campaign called ‘Fan-mily in Residence’ giveaway where one lucky winner and five friends would be gifted a week at a luxury Vrbo in Phoenix, their own personal suite at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl game, airfare, and other prizes. To enter the giveaway, each entrant had to comment on our Instagram post sharing their favorite game day traditions. We were able to select a group of college-buddies who all live in different states but make time to see each other every year by traveling to a new stadium to see a college football game. I traveled to Phoenix to capture real-time content of their trip and broadcasted it across our Instagram and Facebook Stories.

After nearly six years of working on College Football campaigns, I understand the nuances and legal regulations regarding IP for posting about college sports. I have experience working with the universities to build best in class social media campaigns and content that are approved by the schools but are still fun and resonate with the Vrbo audience.