Marriott Bonvoy’s goal on social media in 2023 was to garner positive engagement, especially among younger travelers who are less familiar with their loyalty program and portfolio of hotel brands. Via social listening and on-site experience, the Marriott team found a topic that sparked passionate engagement online – the simple question of how the brand is pronounced. See a notable viral example from The Points Guy from late 2022.
Internally and externally, the way to pronounce Marriott has been a source of debate with two very distinct groups – “Marry-Ott” vs. “Marry-It”. When briefing talent, Marriott noticed that when the correct pronunciation of Marriott was shared, many of them had great reactions. It mirrored how associates and average travelers reacted when hearing the same information. With this relatable connection to the brand in mind, Marriott decided that leaning into this “debate” could garner engagement and positively educate travelers.
In general, Marriott’s goals on key social media platforms, including TikTok, in 2023 included sparking engagement and driving brand awareness.
In concert with other marketing initiatives, Marriott was able to leverage time with talent across music and sports (Bebe Rexha, Justin Jefferson, and Tua Tagovailoa) to efficiently execute this social-first content idea. As with their normal talent briefing process, Marriott started the shoot by explaining the correct pronunciation of the brand name. This time, though, they captured the talent reactions. This was all unscripted to show genuine talent reactions and feelings.
Some talent were completely surprised, while others showed more of a subtle reaction. By showing a range of reactions, different points of view were represented, expanding the relevancy and resonance to multiple audiences organically and authentically. Once the reactions were filmed, Marriott Bonvoy compiled them into one piece of content to share.
This simple piece of content became Marriott Bonvoy’s most successful of the year, generating the most buzz all around from users. Marriott’s goals on key social media platforms in 2023 included sparking engagement and driving brand awareness, and this one piece of content helped them achieve both.
This video drove brand awareness across three channels and saw 1.9M views. It sparked 48K engagements with a 2.5% overall engagement rate (benchmark is 1%). It outperformed benchmarks across all channels:
Instagram Reels – 1.3% (benchmark 1%)
Instagram Stories – 1.7% (benchmark 1%)
Twitter/X - 1.7% (benchmark 1%)
TikTok – 5.4% (benchmark 2%)
In addition, Marriott Bonvoy saw a 21.7K increase in followership directly attributed to this one piece of content.
Users shared this content 11.5K times and saved it 608 times across all three channels. That accounted for 83% of all Marriott Bonvoy content shares for the month it was posted and 29% of all saves for the month it was posted. This indicated to Marriott that members, both existing and new, found this content to be relatable and entertaining. Marriott also found that it positively resonated with users – most comments were positive across channels (78%).
Overall, this simple post was a huge success and further cemented what marketers already know – a bit of self-awareness, positive self-deprecating humor, and fun go a long way on social media.
