DoubleTree by Hilton is a rapidly growing international collection of upscale hotels that span a variety of metropolitan areas and vacation destinations across more than 360 locations 31 countries and six continents. At DoubleTree by Hilton, we believe the little things mean everything when it comes to a great travel experience. In order to generate engagement and awareness surrounding DoubleTree initiatives, we ran a social contest over the course of 9 weeks (September to November) featuring 9 DoubleTree properties around the globe. This campaign was designed to expand DoubleTree’s social media footprint, reach a new audience of potential guests and continue to build relationships with existing guests, while highlighting 9 different properties around the world. Our Marketing Objectives included: 1. Generating awareness and excitement around DoubleTree by Hilton’s global presence 2. Growing engagement and “community" for DoubleTree by Hilton among the general consumer base 3. Reaching new potential guests and build relationships with existing guests To accomplish this contest & generate content, we used Social Media Champions (Social Media Manager at the hotel level) from 9 selected markets around the globe to take a picture of the famous DoubleTree cookie at a prominent location in their surrounding city. The photo was posted to DoubleTree’s social channels and consumers were asked to enter their guess for where in the world the cookie is located through a Facebook App. Each week, one winner who correctly guessed the location was awarded a tin of signature DoubleTree cookies, and one lucky winner who entered all 9 guesses correctly won a one-year supply of DoubleTree Cookies. We selected these 9 markets in order to feature a variety of destinations around the world, further the message that DoubleTree is a global brand, and raise awareness that many of our destinations opening in the coming year are international. We also generated excitement internally by getting team members to go out into their communities to take a photo of the cookie in a prominent location. The platforms and communication channels used for this campaign included a Facebook sweepstakes app with fan-gating, share capability within the app after entry, posts to create awareness and drive traffic for entries through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest.The key performance indicators for this promotion were to bring engaging programs to our fans/followers, increase our pool of potential customers to market back to, and encourage high engagement with the DoubleTree by Hilton brand. The results and increase in engagement on our Facebook page included: More than 3,280 sweepstake entries More than 4,200 app views on the DoubleTree brand Facebook page More than 2,400 new likes on Facebook More than 2,260 new followers on Twitter Engagement with the posts: Facebook posts reached over 166K people and 2,100+ people were talking about us on average per day.
General messaging for this campaign included posts such as: "We're taking the famous DoubleTree cookie on the road and we're giving you the chance to do the same! Each week for the next 9 weeks we'll post a picture of one of our delicious cookies in another exciting DoubleTree location around the world. Correctly guess where in the world the cookie is for all 9 weeks and you could win a year's supply of cookies! Plus, each week you'll be entered to win a weekly cookie tin giveaway."
