DoubleTree Took Its Signature Warm Cookies On Tour
DoubleTree took its signature warm cookies on tour — and drove nearly 400K social impressions
By Peter Adams
When travelers think of DoubleTree by Hilton, one of the first images that pops to mind is the warm chocolate chip cookies the hotel offers for free to its guests. The service, core to DoubleTree's identity — it even has its own website page — is now being brought to life in new ways to meet the heavy demands of multichannel marketing.
This fall, the brand launched an ongoing campaign spanning digital and social media channels, as well as out-of-home activations and live events in cities including Malibu, Boston and Washington, DC. The idea driving "Your Warm Cookie Awaits" and the #SweetWelcome contest, according to DoubleTree's Vice President of Global Brand Marketing Stuart Foster, was to help spread the hotel's dedication to providing warmth and hospitality well past the check-in desk.
To accomplish those goals, DoubleTree looked to offer a resonant experience that stepped beyond traditional brand advertising. Based on initial results, the approach is working: Just a few weeks after the campaign's mid-September launch, a gamified "Catch a Cookie" social contest drew 5,500 entries, exceeding the brand's expectations by 83%. Three of the live events also generated 44,000 Instagram Stories views, 398,641 social impressions and 5,428 total engagements via real-time posting, with plans to extend the tour into 2018.
"People are sort of immune to advertising," Foster told Marketing Dive, calling out research that underscores how consumers have become completely inundated with online ads, receiving thousands of generic messages a day.
"You've got to do it in a breakthrough way," he said of his strategic mindset. "Otherwise no one's going to see you and no one's going to care. That's really what we're trying to do here — something different and more innovative."
Baking up a solid strategy
If Your Warm Cookie Awaits and the #SweetWelcome push have been a success, it's only because there was a lot of work put into getting them off the ground. From its genesis to planning and national rollout, the entire effort took anywhere from three to four months and required the help of four partner agencies: The Martin Agency, Ketchum Public Relations, HZDG and OMD.
Foster noted that the lengthy gestation process and scale of collaboration exemplifies the challenges brands are facing in developing truly multichannel campaigns for the digital age.
"My job and my team's job as a marketer or as a marketing team is just becoming increasingly complex," he said. "The number of channels we have to manage [and] the number of channels where we have options are definitely complex."
Those complexities included not just a big social play, but also properly tying the digital components to real-world and OOH elements — a feat DoubleTree finessed with skill.
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