Marriott are entering new spaces in content production and marketing via social media with the launch of projects to produce original travel programming.
Marriott Content Studio is steering four projects, which include a short film, titled Two Bellmen, development deals with YouTube and Snapchat stars, as well as a new digital publication, according to Tubefilter.
While Snapchat has not traditionally been used amongst mainstream hospitality brands, Marriott are hoping to target the “next-generation of travellers” with its series of travel campaigns.
Four American ‘influencers’ have been chosen to star in the three-month project which is expected to create a ‘two-way conversation’ with users who will steer where the influencers visit and which Marriott brand will be included in those city stays.
The Marriott Hotels brand is the only Marriott International brand part of the campaign.
“The majority of brands are using Snapchat to push out ads, we’re actually partnering with influencers to co-create content,” Marriott International vice president, creative and content marketing, David Beebe said, as reported in skift.
“Our overall strategy is first content, then community, and both of those lead to commerce. Commerce can mean a lot of things. But ultimately our goal is giving consumers what they want, and they will in turn give value back to us.”
“One of our targets is the next-generation traveller, or younger traveller. We’re partnering with storytellers who produce compelling stories and we’re the hero in the story enabling that story to be told. Snapchat is one of the biggest platforms young people use.”
Marriott partnered with marketing agency Naritiv to launch the campaigns, as Snapchat stories are usually only available for 24 hours.
“Naritiv allows us to capture that content and share it on our other platforms, which is why we partnered with them,” Beebe said in the report.
“Not all the content being created for Snapchat may be put on Twitter or Facebook, for example. But if we see a really good image, we may use it on Facebook. We certainly look at numbers, and this is really our effort to engage with the next-generation traveler and this is part of the experiment. We’re putting it out there and hoping it works.”
Marriott has also signed deals with British YouTube ‘stars’ and travel vloggers for as yet unspecified projects.
It’s newest digital publication, Gone, is said to house more than 60 pieces of Marriott driven content and debuted yesterday with a story of four people travelling to Haiti, where Marriott is building a new hotel.
“We’re moving rapidly to continue to engage development and production partners get into physical production and to deliver content to travel consumers,” Beebe said.
“These programs significantly expand both the breadth and depth of our content initiatives by reaching into new content areas where few brands—and even fewer other hospitality brands—have ventured before.”
