To highlight the brand’s commitment to music makers and music lovers, we created the 2019 Live at Aloft Hotels: The Homecoming Tour, in partnership with Universal Music Group, bringing emerging artists back to their hometowns for exclusive, free performances. To support the months-long activation on digital and social media, our objectives were:
The 2019 Live at Aloft Hotels: Homecoming Tour further solidified Aloft Hotels’ commitment as the quintessential brand for music lovers and music makers with the launch of its digital content series. With top-tier artist talent at our disposal, how could we create something that adds value for consumers while keeping our brand top of mind? And, how could we scale an intimate acoustic performance to the masses? We drew on the insight that music fans love to watch live performances of their favorite artists and determined we’d meet the fans where they are already doing this: social media and YouTube channels. We also tapped into the emotional connection of bringing artists to meaningful cities where they began their careers to tell an intimate story captured at the source.
The Live at Aloft Hotels Homecoming Tour content series takes a story-led, documentary-style approach by providing an up-close-and-personal look inside each artist’s journey home, showcasing them both as a local and a performer. Each video takes fans behind the scenes with their favorite artists, including exclusive audio of hits like Troye Sivan’s “Heaven” and Dermot Kennedy’s “All My Friends” recorded live from each hotel. The musician is the hero and the brand is the enabler of this exclusive story, lending the series the authenticity our audience craves.
To implement our strategy, we captured two styles of video content: a Q&A-focused episode with some footage of the performance, and a live music-focused episode with some interview footage. We prioritized live audio recordings for our headliner talent to give music-lovers the type of content they want and are most likely to watch and enjoy — and to provide content that the artists would be proud to share themselves.
Tactically we captured horizontal and vertical video in 15-second and long-form cuts for organic, earned, and paid distribution through brand and artist channels. All content was designed with closed captioning to work with sound off and delight with sound on, a must for social channels. We created a YouTube playlist as the primary platform for the series with the knowledge that this is where fans go to listen to favorite artists and discover new ones. We hosted native videos on Facebook and Instagram in-feed and Stories, as well as IGTV. On the Aloft Hotels Instagram feed, we thoughtfully wove the digital content series into a nostalgia-driven narrative with a visual scrapbook treatment to mimic a superfan’s souvenirs from following along on a tour.
We partnered closely with the artist teams to amplify the content on their own influential social media channels through earned and paid amplification, driving tremendous results.
130,000+ hours (15 years) of video watch time
26,000,000 social media impressions
333,000 social media engagements
