Objective

W Hotels’ authentic passion for music has always set us apart from other brands in the luxury travel space. In 2021, we began a partnership with Cercle, the groundbreaking French media company, to live stream music from one of the world’s most awe-inspiring destinations– Gaathafushi Island at W Maldives.

In 2022, with travel booming back and music lovers hungry for live shows and experiences, we deepened our partnership with four activations around the globe, from W Goa to W Amman, W Rome to W Montreal. 

Looking to 2023, we asked ourselves how to continue this partnership to hit three new objectives:

• Improve overall brand perception and consideration
• Continue to establish brand credibility in music with artists and fans
• Showcase our hotels as the destination for musical tourism, currently a $5.5B business, with a projected market value of $11.3B by 2032

Strategy

Our primary objective was clear: to captivate new audiences of music and travel enthusiasts while positioning W Hotels as the ultimate cultural hubs for this demographic. To achieve this, we crafted an updated strategy that centered around immersive experiences and exclusive access. With an activation at W Verbier followed by a Cercle takeover of W Amsterdam during Amsterdam Dance Event, we optimized our strategy from the previous year in three key ways:

• Video Content that Positions W Hotels as a Music Insider
  • We focused owned content creation on videos that showcased our brand as an insider at the event, whether that be through a behind-the-scenes look at Cercle’s process or an intimate interview with a DJ. This hit our goals of both showcasing our hotels as a hub for culture and music, and also our brand as an insider in the music industry.  
• Partnerships with Additional Influential Insiders in the Music Industry
  • We worked with music insiders as our influencers to amplify both events. At W Verbier, that manifested in working with Carter Gregory (VP, A&R at Capitol Records) and Basil Alhadi (Dubai-based DJ). At W Amsterdam, we partnered with all the artists staying at our hotel for owned and earned content, including Gordo (fka Carnage), Indira Paganotto, LP Giobbi, Carlita, Chloe Caillet, and many more. This allowed us to continue to reach music and travel lovers through Cercle and their followers, while also expanding it to artists and their followers. 
• Amplify Our Music Programming to a Targeted Audience
  • Using the content captured from our music programming throughout the year, we executed a tentpole paid media campaign on Meta. The campaign was designed to strengthen our association with music and position W Hotels as a cultural hub for music-loving travelers. 
  • For our targeting strategy, we created an audience of frequent luxury travelers and concert-goers interested in EDM and house music. This allowed us to reach a highly targeted audience with the message that music tourism is not just a one-off event for W Hotels, but rather integral to our DNA and a unique value prop of our brand.

These optimizations seamlessly blended the worlds of music and hospitality, redefining the landscape of luxury travel. Through these innovative digital strategies, influential collaborations, and targeted amplification, we not only elevated our brand presence but also ignited a fervent passion for music tourism within our global community.

Results

Our partnership with Cercle is more than just collaboration. It's a reflection of our commitment to innovation, creativity, and excellence. Our campaign successfully increased awareness and consideration of W Hotels, with a rise of 4.4 points and 2.5 points, respectively. This has been achieved by working closely with the Cercle team and our hotels, with over 6,000 people attending our concerts and generating over 4,800 social media posts. Cercle's live streams were viewed over 19.1 million times, multiplying the reach of the live experiences by 3,180 times.

During our partnership, we published over 100 assets across Meta generating over 12 million impressions, 2.6 million engagements, and an average engagement rate of over 20%. This allowed us to tell an aspirational travel and music story while engaging our audiences both offline and online. 

We worked with over 70 influencers and tastemakers with a combined following of over 50 million people to expand the reach of this partnership through earned channels. This led to generating 360 million OTS (potential reach) and amplified our overall post and live stream view metrics. 

All of these efforts combined have allowed us to establish a lasting connection with our target consumer, and have more closely associated our brand with its passion point of music to audiences around the world.

Media