Intrepid Travel has launched the next evolution of its global brand campaign, Only Intrepid, bringing a more emotive and immersive lens to its storytelling as the company continues to invest in brand building alongside performance.
Launched on 2 September, the campaign leads into Intrepid’s biggest sales moment of the year, Black Friday and is supported by a suite of hundreds of creative assets designed to engage audiences at every touchpoint.
The campaign builds on the success of last year’s Only Intrepid, the adventure travel company’s most effective brand campaign to date, which drove a 55% spike in global brand search and helped fuel a strong sales period. By January 2025, brand awareness surged by 21%, and 10,000 first-time customers booked through Intrepid’s website, generating a record $29 million in sales.
This latest iteration sharpens the focus on human connection and the kinds of experiences travellers can only get with Intrepid. Spanning Italy, Turkey, Tanzania, Croatia, Morocco, and Kenya, the new creative leans into first-person storytelling, with imagery and video designed to feel more immersive and emotionally resonant. The campaign also introduces updated messaging, QR codes and refreshed calls-to-action, giving regional marketers more flexibility to localise content and align with above-the-line activity.
Natalie Placko, Intrepid Travel global brand director, said: “From learning to make a traditional meal in a small village in Kenya to hand-making mosaics in Croatia, this campaign highlights the unique moments you can have, and the meaningful connections you can make, on our trips. This is Intrepid at its best. Only Intrepid celebrates the real experiences, real places and real people that make travelling with us unique. We know that what travellers remember most are the connections they forge along the journey, and we wanted to put those life-changing moments at the centre of our storytelling in a way that makes the audience feel like they’re part of the action.”
The campaign marks a continued shift in Intrepid’s marketing strategy. Having previously allocated around 80 per cent of spend to performance, the business has now moved to a 50/50 split between brand and performance marketing. The integrated campaign will roll out across paid, owned, earned and shared channels, including digital, social, email, TV, radio, podcasts and out-of-home placements in key cities like London and Melbourne.
The work was again developed in partnership with Melbourne-based creative studio SouthSouthWest (SSW), continuing a long-running collaboration that has helped shape Intrepid’s brand identity since 2021. Previous campaigns include Travel is Back for Good (2022), Good Trips Only (2023), and the original Only Intrepid (2024).
