How AI secured growth in international markets
Thon Hotels aimed to leverage international tourism and "coolcation" with limited budgets. Previous generic campaigns lacked market-specific insights. An extensive keyword analysis for the USA, UK, and Germany was conducted to better understand consumers and differentiate messaging.
Challenge
As one of Norway's largest hotel chains, Thon Hotels holds a strong national position. At the same time, foreign tourists have increasingly taken notice of Norway as a destination. How could Thon Hotels capitalize on this interest and trends such as "coolcation"? The challenge was the limited budget relative to the markets they aimed to advertise in. Previous summer campaigns had adopted a generic approach, using material developed for Norway. Therefore, Thon Hotels faced a crossroads in 2025: continue to allocate budgets to generic messaging or find a smarter way to engage each individual market. Despite last year's campaign delivering good results, they lacked insight into what truly resonated with the different markets. Therefore, prior to the campaign, an extensive keyword analysis was conducted to better understand consumers in the prioritized markets of the USA, the UK, and Germany. The analysis clearly showed an untapped potential to differentiate the messaging.
Idea
To gain deeper insights into target audiences beyond keyword analysis, Thon Hotels leveraged WPP Media's Creative Studio. This secure AI environment, powered by multiple LLMs and proprietary models, allowed them to develop specialized AI agents like "Omniscient Olav," a "Copywriter" trained on global campaigns, and eight "Tourist Personas" based on CRM data. These agents efficiently gathered detailed insights on audiences, messaging, and visual style.
They then formed a synthetic focus group, using the AI agents to further refine and quality-assure their messages. This process enabled us to tailor language, optimize resource utilization with targeted content, and identify key resonating elements for each market. Consequently, they developed distinct communication strategies for each market: the USA focused on scenic road trips, Germany on sustainable travel and local culture, and the UK on combining vibrant city life with natural access.
Results
The AI-driven strategy yielded immediate and measurable results that exceeded all their targets. By speaking a language their international guests understood and valued, Thon Hotels managed to convert the interest in Norway into actual bookings:
· 70% increase in traffic from key markets
· 10% increase in revenue from key markets
This case clearly illustrates that the strategic use of generative AI is not just about technical implementation. In this instance, AI is a crucial catalyst for generating deeper insights, stimulating innovation, and, significantly, achieving substantial commercial results in a global market.
