Choice Hotels Asia-Pac- Choice TravelGrammer 2017

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Name of Organization / Company: Choice Hotels Asia-Pac
Category: C01 - C12 Award for Innovation in Communications / PR > C07. Award for Innovation in the Use of Social Media

Entry Title: Choice TravelGrammer 2017

Essay

Brief:
Representing the Econo Lodge, Comfort, Quality and Clarion brands, and the Ascend Hotel Collection across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific, Choice Hotels Asia-Pac is one of the largest hotel franchise groups in the region.

With over 300 hotels across the Asia Pacific in both regional and metropolitan locations, Choice Hotels’ properties are popular with corporate, family and senior travellers.

In 2017, Choice created a social media campaign designed to drive further engagement of the brand among younger, socially-connected travellers.

Goal:

• Build engagement and brand awareness (online) among Millennials/Gen Y leisure travellers
• Use earned, owned and shared channels
• Execute a series of national activations with 20 properties, highlighting Choice’s accommodation offering
• Increase Choice’s social media audience/share-of-voice (SoV)
• Secure editorial in trade/travel/online/lifestyle media.

Insights:

To entice a younger audience and engage existing customers, Choice looked to Instagram to create inspiring travel storytelling. For Choice, Instagram was key to engaging under 35s, with one in five Australians now on the social media channel.

For Choice, Instagram was key to engaging under 35s. Research shows that under 35s want to fully immerse themselves in new destinations and experiences. Images – published across social media – are their preferred sharing currency.

From this, the #ChoiceTravelGrammer2017 concept was born – a sophisticated social media competition, tourism activation and Instagram event, designed to showcase regional Choice properties and destinations, while building an engaged audience

Strategy:

Choice planned the campaign for Instagram, designed to drive social media engagement, press coverage and word-ofmouth.

To seed the campaign, Choice engaged Australia’s first professional Instagrammer, Lauren Bath (460K+ followers) to act as the campaign host and mentor, and to judge the eventual winner.

Tactics:

• Lauren Bath led a call-out with posts to her own Instagram and Facebook pages encouraging travel Instagrammers to enter
• PR media release sent out to key contacts, which was picked up by the TODAY show and trade media, encouraging further entries into the competition and increasing brand and campaign awareness
• 20 finalists chosen from over 500 entries
• Webinar briefing with finalists (Instagram tips, tricks and best practices, campaign messages)
• TravelGrammers hosted at 20 Choice hotels from 18-19 November
• Georgie Mann (@georgie.mann.photos) announced as winner
• Georgie joined Lauren on a three-day trip to launch her Instagrammer career.

Utilising 20 emerging influencers helped broaden the campaign’s reach and generated over 350 of high quality image/posts.

Other smart tactics:

• Campaign promoted on Facebook and Instagram (paid, influencer and organic)
• Paid influencers.

Creatively, the campaign was a highlight for Choice, creating extensive content for marketing and connecting the brand with a new generation of customers.

Results:

The campaign delivered measurable and lasting business results. Metrics used included web and social media data, business reports from franchisees and media placements.

Brand awareness

• Overall reach – 7,200,000
• Travelgrammer competition – 500+ entries
• 67% social SoV during Instameet

Business sales and enquiry

• 56% year-on-year (YOY) increase in room nights delivered through ChoiceHotels.com.au website
• 38% increase in website traffic to ChoiceHotels.com.au

Social media share, engagement and influence

• Choice owned 35% social SoV amongst hotel competitors for entire month of November
• 1000 new Instagram followers
• 150,000 user interactions with posts containing hashtag (#ChoiceTravelGrammer2017)

Spotlight

Reached 7.2m people, saw 38% increase in website traffic and influenced 56% YOY increase in room nights delivered through ChoiceHotels.com.au website on a like-for-like property basis for November, while helping to position Choice as a desirable brand among a new generation of digitally savvy consumers. In a fresh take on traditional ‘Instameets’, #ChoiceTravelGrammer2017 featured 20 separate Instagram influencers posting from Choice hotels around Australia.

Using a multi-stage campaign strategy, Choice secured a remarkable 67% SoV in the highly competitive tourism space.

Lnks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=641auOt7iRM