Marriott International's newest brand, Tribute Portfolio, set out to raise awareness for its family of indie-spirited hotels and reinforce the brand's positioning as a boutique hospitality brand, defined by the colorful and quirky hotels in its portfolio.
The Pantone Pantry by Tribute Portfolio launched as a collaboration with Pantone Color Institute to create a first-of-its-kind pop-up pantry, inviting consumers to experience an immersive tribute to color, in celebration of the 20th Pantone Color of the Year: Living Coral. The quirky pop-up experience showcased the playful personality of the Tribute Portfolio brand with a monochrome, multi-sensory consumer experience, debuting during Art Basel Miami Beach, at the brand's Royal Palm South Beach Miami Hotel.
Faced with a modest marketing budget, the social media strategy focused on a few core objectives:
-Generate awareness for Tribute Portfolio and its cast of characterful, independent boutique hotels
-Create social-first assets that would generate social media and PR buzz and highlight multi-sensory experiential moments of pop-up
-Strategically leverage partners and influencers to maximize messaging reach
-Announce and sustain excitement for Tribute Portfolio and Pantone's hotel-based experiential partnership, "Pantone Pantry"
With limited marketing resources, Tribute Portfolio focused its efforts on designing platform-specific graphic assets and animated GIFs that embody the brand's penchant for personality and vibrant social spaces. Tribute Portfolio tapped into the iconography of Pantone: it's hallmark Pantone chip graphic, embedding it in colorful and communal hotel environments to visually communicate the connection between the two brands.
An Instagram feed takeover integrated the thumb-stopping Pantone chip motif into Tribute Portfolio's vibrant visual creative draws the eye in and gave substantial social real estate to what would be a milestone collaboration. Messaging of the partnership and the pop-up activation would be sustained across a series of 3 digital triptychs that filled up Tribute Portfolio's Instagram feed.
Tribute Portfolio's Social Media Manager led photographers in shooting imaginative stop-motion GIFs, an innovative content concept in the hospitality vertical's social space. Vibrant animated content highlighted the tangible multi-sensory facets of the experiential pop-up space and enticed followers to come experience the activation for themselves.
The pop-up-promoting content was published organically in real-time, sustained across the activation's 3-day presence, and was cross-promoted on Pantone's Instagram feed, driving traffic back to Tribute Portfolio's channels. A cast of 12 colorful influencer 'characters' were recruited to create their own content, cross-promoting the pop-up and partnership on their channels and driving awareness back to Tribute Portfolio.
Compelling content and photography used on owned and earned channels fortified the brands' meaningful partnership in what Forbes referred to as "a veritable 'hues' hue'", making a splash at Art Basel Miami Beach.
As a result of thoughtfully designed social-first content and strategic cross-promotion from partners, Tribute Portfolio saw a staggering increase in engagement on Instagram within the 3-day pop-up presence during Art Basel Miami Beach:
-6.9M+ TOTAL IMPRESSIONS
-847,650+ TOTAL ENGAGEMENTS
-106% INCREASE in Tribute Portfolio's Instagram audience, doubling brand's Instagram following as a result of cross-promotion from partners and influencers
-Featured in publications like Forbes, Departures Magazine, Ad Age, Design Milk, Wallpaper*, and more
