Hasta La Creative!

W+K and Heineken’s initial “social experiment” (sorry guys, no, this is a marketing campaign) “Departure Roulette” set about to send travelers at JFK Airport on a free trip to a new destination — one that they didn’t know of in advance.

Operating under the assumption that “Heineken consumers are especially open to adventure and the unknown” (and pissy-tasting beer), Heineken and W+K chose to follow-up by finding enthusiastic fans of the initial campaign in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York and bring the Departure Roulette board to them with “Departure Roulette En Route.” These were fans who tweeted that they would love to be given the opportunity to play Departure Roulette, so it was a fair assumption that they would accept the challenge.

Surprised but delighted to be given the opportunity to press the red button and set off for destinations unknown, most seemed excited at their travel prospects. One dude didn’t know where Reykjavik is, which is kind of lame, since I would club baby seals to be given the opportunity to travel to Iceland. Someone else appears to not have been home. (They must be kicking themselves for that one.) Another guy seemed less than elated to be going to Romania, with a reaction something along the lines of “Romania? Okay, I guess I’m going to Romania.” I guess he would have preferred Disney World or something. Maybe that “open to adventure and the unknown” assumption wasn’t so accurate.

This is a really interesting campaign from W+K. The original premise was a cool idea, and the follow-up engaging fans who claimed they’d love to participate makes a lot of sense; and taking things outside of the airport really raises the bar on the spontaneity factor. Wasting a perfectly good chicken parm, though? Not so cool. Credits after the jump.

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