EXPE
Expedia’s latest marketing flex
Expedia just announced a multi-phase, global partnership with IShowSpeed, one of the internet’s loudest and most followed creators. Translation: the company is trying to turn creator chaos into travel cash.
Why this matters
The deal is aimed squarely at Gen Z and the next wave of travelers — the crowd that discovers destinations the same way it discovers everything else: through a scroll, a clip, and a “wait, I need to go there” moment. Expedia says the campaign will lean into creator-led storytelling to drive real-time discovery and booking.
That’s important because travel booking is a brutal attention game. If you can’t win the moment someone dreams up a trip, you lose them to the next app, tab, or influencer itinerary thread. By partnering with someone who has more than 150 million followers, Expedia is basically buying a front-row seat to the attention economy.
The investor angle
This isn’t a balance-sheet fireworks show, but it does tell you where management thinks the puck is going:
- more social-first customer acquisition
- more creator-led brand spending
- more focus on younger travelers who may be less loyal and more impulse-driven
Big picture: Expedia is trying to make travel planning feel less like homework and more like content. If it works, that’s a prettier funnel. If it doesn’t, it’s just another expensive marketing experiment with a very famous face.