Road Trips
Visit California’s new brand campaign, "Playful Journeys," gives road trippers playful ways to engage with road trip content across channels, leveraging emotional drivers like music, bonding, and spontaneous discovery to inspire their own California road trip.
The commercial spot is set to the iconic road trip anthem “Up Around the Bend” by California based band, Creedence Clearwater Revival. The new video highlights California as the ultimate road trip destination with its playful vibe and abundance of possibilities for exploration and adventure.
The “Playful Journeys” campaign includes video assets of varying lengths to accommodate a wide range of media placements, along with a well-rounded digital display campaign and library of image assets featuring many iconic and also hidden gems of California. The $12.6 million paid media campaign launched globally on March 3, 2025, and is expected to garner over 691 million impressions. The media buy includes national linear TV, online TV and digital partnerships across key markets in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Mexico and China. Creative was also localized in two global markets: China and Mexico. Media partners for the campaign include Netflix, YouTube TV, Hulu, Paramount+, Spotify and more.
In addition to paid media, the campaign launch includes extensions across the owned, earned, international and trade channels that help to reinforce that California is The Ultimate Road Trip Destination. Visit California partnered with influencers to share eye-catching road trip content that was amplified on owned channels. Additionally, an innovative AI-powered trip planning tool was integrated into Visit California’s road trip hub, giving consumers inspiration from 70-plus road trip itineraries.
Partner opportunities
- Co-brand with the campaign through the Global Leveraged Media Co-op.
