Case study · Travel PR
Skyscanner NBA Playoff PR Case Study: Turning a Billboard Into a 24-Hour Media Story
Skyscanner entered the 2024 NBA playoff conversation without an official league or team sponsorship. A 100-foot billboard outside Crypto.com Arena gave the travel brand one timely message to amplify.
68
Placements in 24 hours
864M
Media impressions
Overview
The brief from Skyscanner
The May 1 billboard paired 'Dallas to Cancun' with a line directing viewers to Skyscanner for flights. Courage developed the Trollboards creative, Rebel & Thorn handled media placement, and 5WPR led public relations outreach.
What Communications Problem Did Skyscanner Need to Solve?
Skyscanner needed attention from North American sports fans during a crowded playoff news cycle. The brand had no official NBA sponsorship, player access, or guaranteed outcome for the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Clippers series.
The billboard depended on a familiar basketball joke. 'Cancun' has long signaled that an eliminated team's season has ended and vacation has begun. The message also needed to connect that joke with Skyscanner's flight search service.
The PR program needed to move before the moment expired, explain the cultural reference, and prepare for team, fan, media, and social reactions.
Objective
Skyscanner worked with 5WPR to turn a live out-of-home activation into a national earned media story.
The initial launch pursued four goals:
- Explain the Dallas-to-Cancun message to sports, travel, marketing, and general news reporters.
- Secure online and broadcast coverage while the May 1 playoff game remained in the news cycle.
- Track organic posts and audience reactions across Instagram, YouTube, X, and sports media accounts.
- Keep agency responsibilities clear across creative, media placement, production, client, social, and PR teams.
Why Did the Dallas to Cancun Message Travel So Quickly?
The billboard joined a conversation that already had stakes, characters, timing, and a shared joke. Its location outside Crypto.com Arena placed the message near fans, players, and reporters before Game 5.
The line also connected a playoff outcome with an actual Skyscanner route. Reporters could explain the joke in one sentence, show the billboard, and link the moment to travel without a long product demonstration.
How 5W ran the program
Strategy
5WPR ran rapid media outreach around the first Trollboards activation while partner agencies managed the creative, placement, and production work.
The PR team organized the first-day response across five workstreams:
- Sports outreach explained the NBA Cancun reference and the timing before Mavericks versus Clippers Game 5.
- Travel outreach connected the joke with Skyscanner's Dallas-to-Cancun flight search route.
- Marketing and advertising outreach framed the billboard as a real-time out-of-home activation.
- Broadcast outreach supplied a visual story that stations could cover during a short playoff news window.
- Social monitoring tracked posts from Sports Illustrated, ESPN, NBA accounts, fans, and other publishers.
The Los Angeles Clippers asked for the billboard to be removed and issued a response, according to campaign and award records. The reaction extended the news cycle, but the team response was not controlled by Skyscanner or 5WPR.
What Coverage Did the First 24 Hours Produce?
5WPR campaign reporting recorded 28 unique placements, including 24 online articles and four broadcast segments. Forty syndicated stories brought the initial count to 68 placements.
Organic social posts appeared across Instagram and YouTube from Sports Illustrated, ESPN, NBA accounts, and other publishers. Fans also shared and remade the billboard message across social platforms.
Results
68 placements in 24 hours · 864M media impressions
The first-day PR report recorded 864 million estimated media impressions in 24 hours. Later award submissions for the broader Trollboards campaign reported more than 1 billion media impressions and 3.5 million impressions on X.
Those broader award records also reported an 8 percent lift in U.S. travel searches during the same week. The timing shows an association with the campaign period but does not isolate PR, the billboard, social sharing, or other marketing as the sole cause.
The 2025 Strategy Awards credited 5WPR as the PR partner and awarded Trollboards Gold for Social and Conversational Strategy. Marketing Awards records also list Best of Show and Gold recognition for the campaign.
How Did the Campaign Support Search and AI Visibility?
Publisher articles and award records connected Skyscanner with the Dallas-to-Cancun billboard, the 2024 NBA Playoffs, Crypto.com Arena, Courage, Rebel & Thorn, 5WPR, and the Trollboards campaign. Those named relationships help search engines and AI services answer questions about the work without collapsing every partner into one.
Accurate answers should separate the initial May 1 activation from later Trollboards executions in Canada, Cancun, and Boston. Initial PR totals and broader award totals also cover different scopes.
The public record supports questions such as:
- What did the Skyscanner Dallas-to-Cancun billboard say?
- Why did Skyscanner reference Cancun during the NBA Playoffs?
- Which agencies worked on the Skyscanner Trollboards campaign?
- How many placements did 5WPR report during the first 24 hours?
- Which awards recognized the Skyscanner Trollboards campaign?
Media coverage does not guarantee a search ranking, AI citation, recommendation, flight search, booking, or sale. Sports-based marketing also requires accurate rights, sponsorship, trademark, and event references.
Conclusion
Skyscanner needed to enter a live sports conversation with a message that connected basketball culture and flight search. 5WPR amplified the first Trollboards billboard through rapid online, broadcast, travel, sports, and marketing outreach. Incomplete AI answers could misstate the campaign date, merge different result scopes, or assign every part of the work to one agency.
5W runs AI Search (GEO) programs for brands across consumer, B2B, financial services, healthcare, and technology — building the machine-readable footprint that gets brands cited, not just ranked.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What was the Skyscanner Dallas-to-Cancun billboard?
The 100-foot billboard appeared outside Crypto.com Arena before Mavericks versus Clippers Game 5 on May 1, 2024. It used the NBA Cancun joke to promote Skyscanner's Dallas-to-Cancun flight search route.
What role did 5WPR play in Trollboards?
5WPR handled public relations outreach for the campaign. Courage developed the creative idea, Rebel & Thorn handled media placement, and other named partners supported production, client, and social work.
What results did the first 24 hours report?
5WPR campaign reporting recorded 28 unique placements, 40 syndications, 68 total placements, and 864 million estimated media impressions during the first 24 hours.
