The goal of the Holiday Inn Smiles Ahead campaign was to develop custom programming in key markets which target families and provide tangible examples of how the brand goes above and beyond to deliver full service experiences.
The Holiday Smiles Ahead campaign gave media a reason to be interested in the Holiday Inn brand and its offerings during the summer travel season by creating newsworthy programs and activations that will garner earned media attention, as well as provide engaging content for owned channels.
The goals of the campaign were accomplished by:
- Building new IHG partnerships, including with Scholastic, fairlife milk, Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, and Framebridge
- Creating opportunities to engage with guests, including:
- Hosting Scholastic character breakfasts to create memorable moments for families, including 20 media and local influencers in 10 hotel locations
- Creating first-ever weekly on-property Chocolate Milk Happy Hour, providing long-lasting memories for families
- Expanding the Scholastic partnership to speak to the business traveler by offering a lending library and Virtual Bedtime Story for business travelers to feel closer to home and develop connections with their kids while on the road
- Creating a "surprise and delight" Instagram program with Framebridge by identifying guests' on-site Instagram images and surprising them with framed copies to help them relive the memories made at Holiday Inn
- Enlisting a relevant spokesperson, Gaten Matarazzo of Stranger Things, as the brand's Kid Ambassador to pique media interest
- Creating media and influencer opportunities that highlighted and elevated service offerings
- Utilizing a key cultural moment in time via a Total Solar Eclipse viewing party to insert the Holiday Inn brand into a pop-culture conversation
- Developing social and brand content which highlight Scholastic and Chocolate Milk benefits, targeting consumers with paid media
With 4 new partnerships, 15 earned media placements, 5 non-paid influencers, Holiday Inn's first-ever Facebook Live, and more, the Smiles Ahead campaign resulted in exciting successes for the brand. Results highlights from this campaign include:
- Over 217 million earned media impressions and 36 placements, which exceeded coverage goals
- 25 million social impressions, including over 935,000 views and 24,000 likes, comments, and shares
- Over 49,000 views of the Facebook Live broadcast, a first for the brand
- Garnered 14 million impressions by tapping into the Solar Eclipse cultural movement
- 2.1 million impressions on social posts related to Holiday Inn's Kid Ambassador Gaten Matarazzo, including over 25,000 likes, comments, and shares
- Gained over 73,000 bonus impressions from non-paid influencers in the cities of New York, Orlando, and Nashville
- Experienced a 24% growth in year-over-year non-wire media coverage impressions
Video for Holiday Inn Smiles Ahead
