In 2023, and during its 13th year as the NFL’s Official Hotel Partner, Courtyard by Marriott gave passionate NFL fans multiple ways to travel for the love of the game. All season long, fans can get closer to the game by staying in NFL-themed Courtyard Fan Rooms.
Further, as the Official Hotel of the New York Jets, Baltimore Ravens, and Seattle Seahawks, the Courtyard “Ultimate NFL Fan Rooms” fully immersed fans in the excitement of gameday with exclusive in-room team memorabilia, locker-themed closets and more.
The “Ultimate NFL Fan Rooms” were available to book on September 19th, 2023 through November 10th, 2023 at the following three participating locations: Courtyard by Marriott Secaucus Meadowlands, Courtyard Baltimore Downtown/McHenry Row, and Courtyard Seattle Downtown/Lake Union.
The specific content goals were to generate mass awareness of the overall brand partnership between Courtyard by Marriott and the NFL, to increase awareness the “Ultimate NFL Fan Rooms” and to drive active engagements.
This project was brought to life by multiple approaches, including:
- Create content by partnering with celebrities to generate mass awareness and leverage their platforms on social media. These celebrities also had a strong tie to the NFL teams (Ravens, Jets, or Seahawks) that were represented in the Ultimate NFL Fan Rooms. We partnered with four celebrities, including:
- Garrett Wilson, NFL star, wide receiver for the NY Jets, 490k Instagram followers
- Matt James, American television personality and former NCAA football player. James is best known for being the lead on The Bachelor season 25. James is extremely active on social media, has a very large following of 913k Instagram followers on Instagram, and is constantly partnering with brands.
- Anquan Boldin, NFL legend, former wide receiver for the Baltimore Raven, 230k Instagram followers.
- Cliff Avril, NFL legend, former defensive end for the Seattle Seahawks, 244k Instagram followers.
- Create content by partnering with three micro-influencers who are local, die-hard (Ravens, Jets, or Seahawks) fans to generate awareness, but more importantly, to speak directly to the die-hard fans. Each local influencer experienced a stay in the “Ultimate NFL Fan” Room for their respected NFL team. These three local influencers created a “day in the life” vlog for their audiences, including:
- Eric Hammer (@theerichammer), a local New York Jets fan, with 78.1k Instagram followers.
- Andy Dooley (@andyldooley), a local Seattle Seahawks fan, fitness coach, and in-game Seahawks host with 99k Instagram followers.
- Jack Settleman (@jacksettleman), a local Baltimore Ravens fan and a podcast host with 85k Instagram followers.
- Engaging in active community management of likes, comments, reshares, and more to increase engagements with users.
- Collaborating with all Talent using the Instagram collaboration tool to cross-promote each other's content and extend the reach of the campaign.
- Targeting the right audience with a paid amplification strategy with this content to drive awareness and engagements.
The results are attributed to reach, and most importantly, owned, earned, and paid metrics totaling 20,500,000 million impressions, 5,850,000 million engagements, and a 28% engagement rate. With an engagement rate of 28%, this was deemed as an extremely successful partnership that drove mass awareness and active engagements.
