The Telegraph is a 170-year-old news brand, and while it has transitioned from a newspaper to a digital-first, subscriber-centric publisher, many of its traditional advertisers remain print only.

Great Rail Journeys is the UK’s leading escorted rail holiday company. Their aim is to help as many people encounter the most brilliant places and cultures on earth. The trouble is they were only reaching The Telegraph’s 2.4 million print readers and missing out on an additional 17 million digital readers.

GRJ’s tours can cost up to £20,000 pp, so their customers want to feel looked after, they love to take it all in – enabled by a choice of rail, fly, or cruise, all escorted by a tour manager – and they want to feel like it’s worth it.

The campaign idea was to immerse The Telegraph’s digital audiences in the incredible range of experiences GRJ’s escorted tours offer and the ‘memories of a lifetime’ they would make. To do this in the most credible and inspiring way, the team chose influencer vide – but with a premium twist.

To make the observations more discursive and honest, they wanted a couple, ultimately choosing Martin and Shirley Kemp as they are well-known, target age, well-travelled, and have experienced the finer things in life. If GRJ could surprise and delight them, they must be good.

Managed by The Telegraph, the team hired a professional camera crew, producers, and directors to give the film a premium TV quality feel and an edit that would convey the beauty and breadth of experiences along with other key selling points.

Influencer marketing on this scale is expensive, so with the video as the star, they also captured stills photography to help create a 23-page immersive long read, a 10 frame visual story, and 41 native traffic drivers to maximise reach and value. On top of this, they also built a complimentary tour planner to help readers take action and book.

Not only did this campaign help GRJ embrace digital advertising, they totally ran with it, amplifying the campaign across their digital platforms and generating extra product views and sales.

Rob Payne, Chief Commercial Officer at GRJ said: “Content from a trusted voice is essential for our market. We have achieved this through The Telegraph and are proud of our collaboration and the results.”

The video, long read and visual story have been viewed 97,357 times generating 1,340 hours of reader engagement. The video has also been viewed 89,240 times on YouTube with 70% of these on a TV – reinforcing the need for high production values. 90.5% of these views were from people aged 45+, the prime target audience for GRJ.

Over 2 million native ads have been served promoting the video with click through rates that are double benchmark – showing how popular this campaign was with readers.

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