Airline ads mostly sell the same three things: price, legroom, and a sunset out the window. Alaska was in the middle of a rebrand and wanted to feel like something more than the way you get somewhere. So they partnered with Darling, a magazine for women with a big, loyal audience and a habit of never retouching anyone, to make its first travel series. The brief was a show that treated travel as something personal, not a list of things to see.
Darling already sorted its readers into eight personalities: The Hostess, The Dreamer, The Beautician, The Achiever, The Confidant, The Stylist, The Explorer, and The Intellectual. We asked a simple question: what if every one of them had a city? Dallas for The Hostess. Albuquerque for The Dreamer. Seattle for The Intellectual. Portland for The Explorer.
Then we found eight women who actually lived those personalities and let them show you the version of each city that fit them.
I helped develop the treatment, then spent eighteen days on the road with a small run-and-gun crew. Eight cities, a new host every couple of days, and no time to do anything twice.
We took desert dips in Palm Springs, went up in a hot air balloon over Albuquerque, rode horses outside Portland, took the ferry to Bainbridge and ended up at karaoke in Seattle, and chased the light at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego.
Nothing was scripted. The style had to hold together across eight cities and eight very different women, so we leaned on intimate voiceover and let each host lead. We didn't have a studio on the road, so every one of those voiceovers got recorded in our passenger van, parked in a quiet corner or tucked under an overpass. It was the quietest place we could find. It was also free.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I was living the show too. Every morning we woke up somewhere new. We flew Alaska from one stop to the next, and I'd sit there on the plane wondering what the next place was going to hold. We were making a branded series about how a city can change you, and I was the one getting changed. I still think about that trip.
Go, Be You launched with eight two-minute episodes across Darling's channels, a longer city guide on the blog for each one, and an Alaska flight giveaway every week.
