a&o Hostels

Objectives

Driving bookings through culture-led performance

As one of Europe's largest hostel and budget accommodation brands, a&o Hostels set out to embed its brand within Gen Z culture while driving measurable lower-funnel performance on TikTok.

The goal was to launch their proprietary a&o song "Where to Go" as a native TikTok cultural asset, drive high-intent traffic to the brand's website, and validate the potential for TikTok content to translate into measurable performance outcomes.

At the same time, the campaign was expected to deliver clear business results, including a significant increase in bookings.

Solutions

A scalable TikTok-first strategy built around creators

The campaign followed a clear TikTok-first approach from concept to execution. The "Where to Go" song was created specifically for TikTok, which was designed to be short, catchy, and easily adopted by creators as a native sound rather than as a traditional soundtrack.

In collaboration with their creative partner, DEPARTD, the brand activated creators through TikTok Creative Exchange to produce the first wave of native videos using the song. Based on early results, additional creators were onboarded via TikTok One to further embed the song into platform culture.

Paid media was then used to amplify creator-generated content that was already performing. Content that demonstrated strong engagement was systematically scaled using Spark Ads, ensuring that reach, interaction, and conversion all stemmed from TikTok's native content mechanics rather than adapted advertising formats.

Results

Exceptional performance with efficient spend

With a modest media budget, the campaign generated more than 30 million impressions on TikTok, outperforming an alternative platform, where a significantly higher budget delivered fewer impressions. Direct traffic to the a&o Hostels website, meanwhile, increased by 10.31%, adjusted for seasonal effects and new locations.

Performance outcomes exceeded expectations with the campaign driving 830 bookings, generating revenue of €190,351. This resulted in ROAS of 5.44, well above the original target of 3.0. In addition, nearly 1.6 million new users were introduced to the brand, creating impact beyond the campaign window.

Brand impact was confirmed by a Brand Lift Study, with one Smart+ campaign delivering a lift in ad recall of 8.2%, double the overall campaign average, highlighting the sustained effectiveness of creator-led assets.

Together, these results show that a TikTok-first creative approach can drive cultural relevance, strong performance, and scalable business growth at the same time.