Joie de Vivre Hotel Marketing Wins Social Fans
Hotel Markeitng Promo - Singing for an Upgrade
Social media can take ho hum hotel marketing to exciting new levels. At Thin Pig Media, we have been fortunate to work with many innovative clients on a variety of hotel marketing projects. One award winning project we loved emphasized social sharing in a unique hotel marketing promotion. We worked with Joie de Vivre hotels on a campaign called “Singing for an Upgrade.” It was a fairly simple idea; by utilizing Facebook and social sharing JDV was able to extend the organic reach of the promotion and introduce many new potential guests to their brand.
What would you do for a hotel room upgrade?
Here is how it worked. At one of four participating JDV Hotels (Hotel Erwin, Hotel Angeleno, Custom Hotel and Shorebreak Hotel) the front desk agent would offer a free upgrade to a guest checking in. Most were thrilled at the offer but there was a catch -- for the introverts, it was a BIG catch. To get the upgraded room, all the guest had to do was sing on camera one of five songs and allow JDV to post their performance on Facebook and YouTube. In addition to getting a great upgrade, they would be competing for an even grander prize, a two-night stay at each of the four southern California hotels. Would you do that? I know I would. Not because I am a good singer...I just love upgrades.
Hotel Markeitng Promo - Singing for an Upgrade
Once captured on video, the guest's rendition became part of a social contest on the participating hotels’ Facebook pages. Visitors had to “Like” the page to watch the singers and vote for their favorite performances (one vote per day). In the end, 66 brave souls risked ridicule and sang their way to an upgrade. In the few months that the contest ran there were 6,888 video views and just 10 votes shy of 6,000. Each of the five participating Facebook pages saw a nice spike in Likes and total “post views” were over 1.6 million.
3 factors made this hotel marketing promotion a success
1. Fit the brand. Singing for an upgrade fit the fun, hip JDV brand and their guests perfectly. A quieter luxury brand like Ritz Carlton may not want to attempt this, but for an edgy boutique hotel company it was perfect.
2. Embraced social. JDV got their guests’ friends and family in on the action by allowing them to spread the word to get votes. That aspect helped expose the brand to many potential guests that did not know the JDV brand.
3. Uniqueness extended promotion’s life. To this day, they are still getting the occasional view. The promotion also won a Smitty Award from Travel & Leisure magazine and several blog posts and articles were written trumpeting the creativity of JDV.