Marriott Bonvoy Moments is an incredibly popular program for loyal Marriott Bonvoy members. It provides members access to once-in-a-lifetime experiences across music, food, sports, and more thanks to Marriott’s partnerships with some of the biggest names in those industries. Members can bid or redeem their points for the opportunity to participate in experiences they can’t get anywhere else, often with top talent.
Although Marriott Bonvoy’s most engaged members understand the incredible value of Marriott Bonvoy Moments, many other members don’t have enough points to engage with Marriott Bonvoy’s traditional Moments bids. Marriott knew if more members could see the power of Moments, more members would be inspired to save up their points for them in the future. Marriott needed to find a way to bring this exclusive program to their target Gen Z and new member audiences while maintaining the prestige of the offering and not turning off their loyal Marriott Bonvoy Moments superusers.
Marriott measured their success with the following metrics:
Package redemptions and speed of redemption
Engagement rate
Video view-through rate
Channel growth
Marriott Bonvoy identified a need among their audience – younger or newer Marriott Bonvoy members often did not have enough points to redeem for a Marriott Bonvoy Moment, making this offering inaccessible to many. To make Moments accessible to a larger audience, the concept of One Point Drops was born. Marriott also needed a way to ensure that the target audiences would be interested in these Moments. This was done by identifying five key audience niches (foodies, true crime enthusiasts, women in sports, fashion and beauty fans, and music lovers) and matching those key segments to experiences and talent that would resonate most with younger users.
The Moments experiences members could access with just one point included:
A curated cocktail and mezcal tasting class with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul of Dos Hombres Mezcal and “Breaking Bad” fame.
A soccer clinic and a nail pampering session with U.S. Women’s Soccer’s Trinity Rodman.
A wings and hot sauce tasting with Sean Evans of the popular “Hot Ones” YouTube show.
A whodunit deep dive into a true crime case led by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat of the Crime Junkie Podcast at a Homes and Villas by Marriott Bonvoy home rental.
Marriott Bonvoy Moments released four marquee talent experiences throughout 2023 with packages priced, for the first time, at just one single Marriott Bonvoy point. These became the most attainable Moments experiences ever, and their relevance for new Gen Z members without a lot of points skyrocketed. These experiences were announced on Marriott Bonvoy social channels before they dropped to drum up media coverage with key new lifestyle outlets, build awareness, and create envy amongst our competitors’ members.
Marriott filmed custom content with talent to pre-promote the packages before they were available for redemption and bidding. Pre-promoting Moments with custom content to create excitement and hype had not been tested before, and additional access to talent made this possible for the first time ever. Marriott Bonvoy social media was the primary channel supporting each One Point Drop announcement. Marriott Bonvoy announced each upcoming drop on Instagram and TikTok and provided reminders to followers during the pre-promotional period. Exclusive content was captured with each talent and shared after each experience to continue building love for the Marriott Bonvoy Moment program among members.
A small and nimble internal production team filmed custom content both pre-experience and during the experiences to highlight the exclusive access that only Marriott Bonvoy members can get with high-profile talent.
Marriott Bonvoy saw great success with the launch of One Point Drops for Marriott Bonvoy Moments. All one point packages sold out on the platform within two minutes, thanks largely to strategic prepromotion on social media. Social content placements on Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, and TikTok aided Marriott in reaching new and younger audiences. Results included:
Delivered 15M views on 19 posts across all channels.
Saw 184K engagements across all channels.
Content outperformed overall benchmarks across the board.
Five assets had engagement rates over 5% (benchmark is 1%).
Follower growth on TikTok attributed to this content series was over 12K.
Social content saw additional reach and awareness from strategic collaboration posts on talent Instagram handles for all four drops. Content appeared on Dos Hombres, Trinity Rodman, Crime Junkie, and Hot Ones social channels. Marriott’s social content was included in coverage on People.com, which further extended its reach.
Marriott found that 90% of One Point Drop winners had never previously redeemed points for a Marriott Bonvoy Moment, which delivered on Marriott’s goal to open up access to incredible, member-exclusive experiences to a brand-new audience.
