Eurocamp Balance Travel Excitement and Relaxation in 5-star New Ad

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It may be winter but families’ thoughts are turning to their summer holidays, and that means an uptick in travel advertising. Particularly as we head into January there’s fierce competition among holiday brands to make ads which are effective both in the short term – driving immediate sales with tempting imagery – and over the longer term, building up brand reputation in a sector where word of mouth is all important.

On Test Your Ad, travel ads bring the emotional sunshine. The category average for long-term Star Rating is 3.3-Stars, well above the overall norm and a score which testifies to how appealing holiday imagery can be. So to stand out, a brand needs to offer something more individual. Eurocamp, which offers holidays in hundreds of locations across Europe, has done just that.

While most holiday ads emphasise relaxation, Eurocamp is marketing itself in its newest ad to active families. “Open The Door To More” shows a family having a terrific time stepping through a series of magical doors, which all lead to different activities Eurocamp offers, from playing on the beach to sightseeing to tennis. Set to an upbeat, sixties-styled French pop soundtrack the ad mixes family fun with continental chic alongside bright, colourful effects.

Ordinary viewers on Test Your Ad love the commercial, and it scores an Exceptional 5.0-Stars for long-term effectiveness while also getting an Exceptional Spike Rating for short-term impact. In other words, we predict it will drive sales this holiday season and grow the Eurocamp brand in the longer term, given the right investment.

But why does it work so well? A way to answer that question is to look at this previous 2022 Eurocamp ad, which takes a similar approach, with an upbeat soundtrack and a rap-style voiceover that rattles off all the different types of ways you can entertain yourself on a Eurocamp holiday. It’s joyful and in your face, and just like the new ad it got an Exceptional score on short-term Spike Rating. But it didn’t perform as well on long-term Star Rating. So if we look at what’s different we can understand why the new commercial works so well.

Where the 2025 ad beats the 2022 one is on creating an upbeat vibe without going over the top. While Eurocamp wants to sell an active holiday, the category as a whole is very driven by the joy of relaxation, and Test Your Ad response reveals that the earlier Eurocamp commercial is just too noisy, fast-paced and rhythmic. It feels more like a sportswear ad than a holiday one, and audiences find it tough going even though they like the brand and the idea of an active family holiday.

The 2025 ad, on the other hand, gets the balance exactly right between stressing entertainment and variety but also feeling less frenetic. It dials the voiceover right back and shows the family enjoying themselves rather than telling us about it. And its music gives just the right touch of the exotic. Both ads are good at selling holidays in the short term, but the 5-Star Rating for the new one is a wonderful example of how an ad can take the same idea and move it into more emotionally satisfying territory.