Hotel Indigo, the industry's first branded boutique hotel, launched its multifaceted Color of Discovery campaign for a second year in a row to grow awareness, consideration, and favorability with the ultimate goal of driving occupancy. Our social and content activations would support these goals by casting Hotel Indigo as the ultimate curator of local discoveries, bringing to life our neighborhood stories, and mindfully representing our audience in our ads.
As part of this, Hotel Indigo announced its celebration of the LGBTQ community through the Color of Pride campaign. We are committed to creating a welcoming environment for all, and we celebrate individuality and appreciate self-expression. It's what makes our hotels, our employees, and our guests unique. We also believe in standing out, and standing proud, and celebrating these differences. We wanted to use our Color of Pride initiative to discover the parts of Hotel Indigo neighborhoods that reflect a piece of our guests and their stories.
To accomplish our objective of engaging and celebrating the LGBTQ community, we partnered with LGBTQ influencers, posted Pride content on our website and social channels, and collaborated with our hotels to offer special in-hotel Pride packages and experiences to guests.
On our web content hub, we created and organically boosted 11 Color of Pride Stories that highlighted LGBTQ-friendly neighborhoods and what not to miss in our hotels' cities as an LGBTQ traveler. Story topics showcased on the site ranged from "An LGBT Walking Tour of NYC's West Village", to the "Best Spots to Get Your Brunch On for Pride 2017." As part of this, we partnered with LGBTQ influencers Brock and Chris of Yummertime who traveled to Hotel Indigo properties in Denver and Manhattan's Lower East Side, generating both social assets and content that was published on our content hub and later our social channels.
On social, we pushed several carousel and video assets that drove home the celebration of self-expression, self-discovery, and individuality. Inviting guests to celebrate their story, their authentic self while echoing the sentiment that Hotel Indigo is a reflection of the neighborhood and all the different people that make it as unique and vibrant as it is. Discovery is at the heart of our brand, and we are proud to celebrate every aspect of it. All content drove to the web hub to show authenticity to our audience, becoming a valuable voice in their travel choices while inspiring them to explore and discover themselves and the world around them.
Our hotels were excited to join us in this special celebration of Pride, and offered many different experiences for the LGBTQ community. At select hotels, guests could taste specialty cocktails and mocktails crafted specifically for the Color of Pride, pick-up exciting Pride merchandise including pins, postcards, and more, and view #ColorOfPride photo feeds of Hotel Indigo neighborhoods celebrating the Pride community. Guests could also book special Color of Pride room packages that included donations to local LGBTQ nonprofits and community centers, such as the NYC Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center near the Hotel Indigo Lower East Side in Manhattan.
Our Social Media Community Management team then engaged with guests who interacted with Color of Pride content on our social channels, including sending guests IHG Rewards Club points and mailing handwritten Color of Pride postcards directly to their homes.
The Color of Pride campaign was an exciting success for Hotel Indigo and our celebration of the LGBTQ community. Color of Discovery, which was the foundation for Color of Pride, brought innovative results to the brand, including over 65 million impressions on Facebook and Instagram, a 5% 3-second video view rate, and a 6-point increase in ad recall and brand awareness. Color of Pride specifically experienced impressive results for the brand in just the first three months of launch, including over 7.6 million impressions and over 12K engagements. These outcomes were the first-of-their-kind for Hotel Indigo, and broke new records and brought new successes for the brand.
Even with these exciting metrics, as a brand we are most excited about the opportunity this campaign brought to engage with and celebrate the LGBTQ community, and to highlight the individuality and authenticity of our hotels' neighborhoods and the guests who discover them every day.
