One of our biggest social tensions was that the more branded our content became, the less our Gen Z audience engaged with it. Highly polished brand posts felt unnatural in-feed, influencer content lost credibility when it looked too much like us, and while traveller content performed well, it often lacked any clear link back to Contiki.

I introduced Giphy as a strategic solution to that problem. By using branded stickers, we could shift toward more authentic, social-first content while still giving stakeholders the brand visibility they wanted. It allowed us, our creators and our travellers to make content that felt more native — without losing attribution.

The impact went beyond our own channels. We also created GIFs around the real moments travellers were already sharing, resulting in 1.4 million Contiki-branded GIF views across traveller content and counting.