Numberly helps Club Med grow brand preference 200% with Amazon DSP and streaming TV

Goals

Club Med, the iconic French travel brand, set out to reposition themselves as a premium experience for a new generation of affluent, experience-driven travelers. While the brand had strong heritage recognition, their brand preference metrics showed a meaningful gap versus luxury hospitality leaders. The ambition was distinct: as a non-endemic brand not sold on Amazon, Club Med needed to reach high-value audiences in streaming environments where discovery decisions increasingly happen—without a direct retail presence to build on.

Amazon offered a unique advantage: the ability to identify premium lifestyle audiences through shopping and streaming signals, then reach them in brand-safe environments at scale where they are most receptive to emotional storytelling.

Club Med partnered with Numberly, an Amazon Ads advanced partner that focuses on omnichannel orchestration and programmatic activation, to deploy Amazon DSP and streaming TV ads at scale, with goals spanning awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Approach

The campaign's vision was clear: evolve from a legacy all-inclusive brand to premium pioneer, using the emotional narrative of “L'Esprit Libre” (the free spirit) as the creative anchor. Numberly built a full-funnel strategy anchored in a single emotional truth: the freedom of mental disconnection. Affluent modern travelers aspire to genuine mental disconnection yet struggle to achieve it.

Using Amazon's retail insights as a cultural proxy for premium lifestyle aspiration, the team identified travel-ready audiences who were affluent purchasers of premium products—combined with Club Med's first-party insights. This approach transformed Amazon's shopping and browsing signals into travel discovery signals.

At the top of the funnel, cinematic brand films delivered the “L'Esprit Libre” narrative across Prime Video and premium publishers including TF1+, Disney+, HBO Max, France TV, and Canal+. In the mid-funnel, interactive Prime Video ads bridged inspiration and action, allowing viewers to engage directly with Club Med's Exclusive Collection from the screen. Amazon DSP remarketing creatives were dynamically adapted based on upper-funnel engagement: users exposed to beach content received sun destination ads, while those who engaged with mountain content were served ski resort creatives.

While the upper and mid-funnel focused on brand storytelling and consideration, the lower funnel shifted to conversion efficiency. Performance+, Amazon's AI-powered solution designed to optimize toward cost-per-acquisition goals, automated campaign setup and real-time bid optimization for this conversion layer specifically. Fueled by Club Med's first-party conversion signals combined with Amazon's unique shopping, streaming, and entertainment insights, Performance+ predicted conversion likelihood and dynamically refined reach toward the most conversion-ready prospects who had already engaged with the “L'Esprit Libre” narrative.

Results

The campaign delivered results that exceeded every goal. Brand preference, measured via Kantar, grew by 200%—double the campaign's +100% goal—validating “L'Esprit Libre” as a resonant narrative capable of genuinely shifting consumer perception.¹ This represented a meaningful repositioning of how affluent travelers viewed the Club Med brand. Video completion rate reached 96%, surpassing the 90% goal.² Cost per acquisition (CPA) across Amazon and beyond came in at €1.12, 25% below the €1.50 goal, proving that upper-funnel brand storytelling could simultaneously drive commercial efficiency for a non-endemic brand.³

These results demonstrate how strategic audience engagement, combined with full-funnel orchestration across Amazon DSP and streaming TV, can help a non-endemic brand successfully reposition themselves and reach high-value audiences without a direct retail presence.

The campaign's success fundamentally changed Club Med's media strategy. Amazon Ads became a core pillar of their European media approach. Club Med launched “Dream Makers,” an original Prime Video series whose viewers became a first-party remarketing audience.

Sources

^1-3 Club Med, France, 2025.