Mafengwo sells a blind two-person trip as a love test — 27 slots gone in hours

In September 2016, Mafengwo (马蜂窝), China's leading travel-guide community, was launching 'Guides 2.0' — bookable itineraries — but research showed most consumers still thought of it as a place to read tips, not buy trips. With agency F5, it set out to make 'bookable' famous in one stroke.

The campaign worked in three acts. First, surreal flat-design subway and elevator posters in Beijing and Shanghai promoted wild bookable experiences — driving a tank in Russia, staying in a prison hotel, lunching with a NASA astronaut. Then, on the night of Sept 6, the brand's WeChat account posted a 17-character goodbye note; an app countdown went live. On Sept 7 at 8pm, the reveal: a two-person blind trip, ¥1,314, unknown departure, destination and experience, limited to 27 sets — and if the person you invited refused, there was no refund.

The offer was a staged 'relationship test': travel was framed as the fastest way to expose whether two people truly fit. The 27 slots sold out within hours of the 11:11pm launch. By Sept 11, WeChat reads exceeded 10 million and the Weibo topic #一场未知的旅行# had passed 160 million reads, with the reveal showing each buyer got a trip worth far more than the price — the same experiences shown in the subway ads, closing the loop.

The campaign was the first major ad push in Mafengwo's history and established a repeatable format: the 'Unknown Travel Lab' kept running experiments for years, each one a productized version of the brand's core slogan.