The Ultimate Experience
A brand partnership activation that rewarded grassroots rugby culture while strengthening Skyscanner’s connection with both fans of the game and travellers.
The Challenge: Making sponsorship mean something
Skyscanner has a long-standing partnership with Scottish Rugby.
For the opening 2026 Guinness Men’s Six Nations fixture against Italy in Rome, they were offered something new: four seats on the team flight and match tickets. Exclusive access. The kind of opportunity most sponsors would use for hospitality.
But modern audiences on social are sceptical of brand access.
Simply showcasing perks or placing logos alongside elite sport wasn’t enough.
The brief was clear: turn this access into a piece of content that builds genuine brand sentiment with both travel audiences and rugby fans.
This campaign needed to feel earned, and not engineered.
The Strategic Insight:
Reward community, not Influence
Before landing on an idea, we looked at how sponsorship content actually behaves on social.
Sport audiences are emotionally invested. They care about fairness and authenticity. When brands use access to reward influencers or celebrities, the reaction is often immediate and negative. The comment section becomes the story.
That was the first layer.
The second was cultural. Rugby in Scotland is deeply rooted in grassroots clubs. Coaches, volunteers and local contributors are respected. International success still feels connected to community effort.
At the same time, Skyscanner as a brand is built on access and possibility, enabling ordinary people to reach meaningful moments.
So the strategic question became:
How do we use exclusive access to tell an inclusive story?
Instead of amplifying status, we amplified contribution.
If this were framed as “brand gets VIP treatment,” it would feel self-serving.
Framed as “brand rewards someone who gives back to the sport,” it becomes aligned with both audience values and brand positioning.
That shift, from access to acknowledgement, is what turned a sponsorship opportunity into something people could genuinely get behind.
How we approach brand partnerships
Before we think about cameras or formats, we slow it down.
Every partnership activation starts with three questions:
What does the brand actually stand for?
What does the audience care about emotionally, not just behaviourally?
Where is the cultural tension between the two?
That third question is usually where the idea lives.
The concept:
The Ultimate Experience
Once the strategy was clear, the idea felt inevitable.
Together with Skyscanner and Scottish Rugby, we identified Ruiraidh, a grassroots rugby contributor, who represents the part of the sport that fans respect most. He gives his time to the game week in, week out, without expectation of recognition.
He was told he had won a trip to Rome to watch Scotland play Italy.
What he didn’t know was that he would be flying with the team.
That detail changed everything. It transformed the experience from a prize into a moment of acknowledgement. It made the brand’s access feel purposeful rather than privileged.
At the team hotel, Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu delivered the news.
We had one opportunity to capture it properly. There was no rehearsal, no second take, no controlled reset if the energy felt wrong. The authenticity of that reaction was the emotional core of the film.
On social, genuine moments travel further than manufactured ones. If the idea was about rewarding contribution, the execution had to reflect that same honesty.
And that’s what gives the film its weight.
Watch ‘The Ultimate Experience’
Execution: Social-first thinking under pressure
This campaign required careful stakeholder alignment across Skyscanner and Scottish Rugby. It required protecting the reveal in a live, fluid environment. It required building a narrative arc that would work natively on social, not as a mini-documentary, and not as an ad.
We blended interviews for context, hidden-camera capture for authenticity, and live match coverage to complete the journey.
And once the final whistle blew, we had 24 hours to deliver.
Our role went beyond production. We acted as the strategic and operational bridge, ensuring the idea held up creatively while satisfying brand, partnership and governance considerations.
Despite the moving parts, the final piece feels simple, and that simplicity is the product of structure.
The Impact:
Brand alignment done properly
The Ultimate Experience campaign achieved its primary objective: strengthening positive sentiment around Skyscanner’s partnership with Scottish Rugby, but more importantly, it proved something bigger:
When brand, audience and culture align, sponsorship stops feeling like marketing.
Feedback across both organisations was strong, particularly around the clarity of the idea and the way the project was handled.
The content didn’t feel like a brand inserting itself into sport. It felt like a brand understanding it.
Partnership activation that holds up publicly
In sport, travel and cultural partnerships, audiences care deeply. If you misread that environment, they’ll let you know.
The Ultimate Experience worked because it respected the audience first and the brand second, while still serving both.
That balance is what modern brand storytelling requires, and it’s where we operate best.
Ready to activate your brand in a way that truly resonates with audiences on social?
If you’re looking for a social media partner who understands brand, audience and culture in equal measure, get in touch.
Book a call with us today.