The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2013
Turkish Airlines' Kobe vs Messi selfie shootout wins YouTube's ad of the decade
CP+B pits the two superstars in a global selfie duel that sold Turkish Airlines' network — 140M+ views, YouTube's favorite ad of the decade.
Turkish Airlines
What it had to solve
Turkish Airlines, coming off a viral 'Legends on Board' film with the same two stars (105M+ views), wanted its first work from Crispin Porter + Bogusky to launch the new 'Widen Your World' platform — and to make its global network, the largest of any carrier, feel like a story rather than a route map.
How it works
In late 2013 Turkish Airlines needed to make its biggest commercial asset — flying to more countries than any other carrier via its Istanbul hub — feel emotional rather than operational. Its new agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, had two global ambassadors on hand: NBA star Kobe Bryant and FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi, who had already appeared together in the airline's viral 'Legends on Board' film.
The resulting 60-second spot, 'Kobe vs. Messi: The Selfie Shootout,' turned the route network into a playground. The two superstars one-up each other with selfies taken at Red Square, the Great Wall, the Maldives, Bangkok and Mount Kilimanjaro — all destinations Turkish Airlines serves — while consulting the airline's destination boards at airports. In the final shot, Messi poses in Istanbul's Sultanahmet Square and is photobombed by Bryant.
The film launched online on December 3, 2013, and then aired on TV in the UK and in 20 countries in more than 15 languages. It took 25 million views in its first three days and 114 million in eleven, surpassing the previous 'Legends on Board' film. In June 2015 YouTube named it the 'Your Favorite' ad of its first decade of branded videos, by then past 140 million views.
The idea worked because the product itself was the story: a network of destinations became a game of one-upmanship between two of sport's biggest stars, ending in a selfie and a photobomb — an idea anyone could understand and pass on.
Why it lands
- The campaign dramatized a functional fact — the airline's global reach — as playful competition between two superstars, so the network itself drove the humor.
- It rode the then-new selfie trend, giving audiences a cultural reference they recognized instantly in 2013.
- The final photobomb gave the film a shareable punchline, so viewers spread the work instead of the brand buying reach.
- Celebrity rivalry plus an implicit product tour made the airline's scale memorable without a single route-map infographic.
What it did
The film passed 25 million views in its first three days and 114 million within eleven, and by June 2015 had topped 140 million when YouTube named it the 'Your Favorite' ad of its first decade of branded videos. It also made the new 'Widen Your World' positioning the brand's signature and remains Turkish Airlines' best-known commercial.
What you can take
A brand asset (a route network) becomes shareable when it is dramatized as a rivalry between superstars; the product itself supplies the joke, and the audience spreads it for free.
Since then
Turkish Airlines kept the duo for follow-up films, and the spot's popularity helped establish 'Widen Your World' as the brand platform. YouTube's 2015 'Your Favorite' decade vote, at 140M+ views, made it one of the most-watched brand films of its era; Anadolu Agency reported 114 million views within eleven days of launch. The film is still cited as the example of using global celebrity and product truth to make a utility-heavy category entertaining.
Sources
- Kobe and Messi have a Selfie Shootout
- Turkish Airlines' new Kobe-Messi spot film hits over 114 mln Youtube views
- Turkish Airlines Wins Favorite YouTube Ad of the Past Decade
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