for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, May 6-8 in Palm Springs.
Sprint is extending its quirky Frobinson family “framily plan” campaign with travel-planning startup Roadtrippers, which will play host to the adventures of the fictional family as it roadtrips across the country in an RV.
The experiences along the way will be documented through Tom Frobinson’s Twitter handle @TomFrobinson, Sprint’s handle @Sprint, Roadtrippers’ handle @Roadtrippers as well as Facebook. Additionally, Roadtrippers will also help deliver travel inspiration to other American “framilies” through social media updates, interesting stories and a cross-country road trip on the family’s homepage blog.
Sprint introduced the Frobinsons to promote their new friends and family plan earlier this year, recreating a hugely popular Japanese Softbank campaign for an American audience with Figluilo & Partners — replete with a talking Hamster dad, Tom, his equally odd human family and an assorted bunch of friends and extended family.
“We call [Tom Frobinson] our hero — so we definitely want to increase his likability,” said Cristin Jordan, vp of social content at DigitasLBi, of the campaign’s hamsterstar.
This is the first brand tie-up for Roadtrippers, the Web and mobile platform that streamlines the travel experiences of discovery, planning, booking and navigation in one spot, and that is one of the fastest-growing travel startups. According to SimilarWeb, it gets approximately 3.4 million unique monthly visits and, according to the company, is growing at a rate of approximately 29 percent month-on-month.
“It’s not just about getting from point A to point B, it is also about planning the cool things to do along the way,” said Josh Green, the business development lead at Roadtrippers. “We have a database featuring a curated list of half a million places — offbeat, local, mom-and-pop, divey, fun and whacky places, which is perfect for the Frobinson family.”
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