Objective

As a longtime NFL sponsor, Courtyard by Marriott set out to captivate the attention of its target guest, the Trailblazer, an ambitious traveler that over-indexes with NFL fandom.

Courtyard by Marriott, prides itself on creating unforgettable experiences for its guests. As the Official Hotel of the NFL, Courtyard by Marriott is the only hotel brand that is granted access to create these once-in-a-lifetime travel moments for our guests in partnership with the NFL. With that, the Courtyard VIP Fan Zone travel experience was created to inspire NFL fans to follow their passions for football and travel while experiencing the 2023 NFL Draft live in-person.

The specific content goals included generating mass awareness of the Courtyard VIP Fan Zone and to drive active engagements on social media. To achieve these goals, Courtyard by Marriott partnered with #1 defensive draftee, Will Anderson Jr. #1 offensive draftee, Bryce Young. 

Strategy

The project came to life by:

1. Showing off the footprint of the Courtyard VIP Fan Zone through content in a new and engaging way to its audiences. To add some fun and humor, the video concept “The Offense vs Defense Game” was created as a spinoff of “The Newlywed Game” an American television game show where pairs answer questions about each other to test their similarities.
2. Partnering with two NFL draftees Bryce Young (456,00 Instagram followers) and Will Anderson Jr. (184,000 Instagram followers) to be the Talent in the concept to drive reach.
3. Engaging in active community management of likes, comments, reshares, and more to increase engagements with users.
4. Collaborating with Bryce Young and Will Anderson Jr. using the Instagram collaboration tool to cross-promote each other's content and extend the reach of the campaign.
5. Targeting the right audience with a paid amplification strategy with this content to drive awareness and engagements.

Results

The results are attributed to reach, and most importantly, owned, earned, and paid metrics totaling 10,400,000 million impressions, 4,850,000 million engagements, and a 46% engagement rate. With an engagement rate of 46%, this was deemed as an extremely successful partnership to drive awareness and engagements.

At the time this asset was published both Young and Anderson Jr. were just draftees. As the 2023 NFL Draft progressed, Bryce Young was the #1 overall draft pick and Will Anderson Jr. was the #3 overall draft pick. Due to Young and Anderson Jr. being top draftee picks, our engagement increased as they both were culturally relevant around the NFL conversations on social media. 

Media