CHICAGO—When Hyatt Hotels Corporation changed its amenities program to reflect the needs of guests—particularly female guests—the global hospitality company needed a way to get the word out.
As part of an overall media campaign, the company teamed up with Poptent, a social video creation company that connects brands with a network of more than 65,000 independent filmmakers, to create videos that target the female audience. To date, the videos have more than 1.5 million views on YouTube.
“It all started with a year-and-a-half-long listening tour,” said Emily Wright, senior manager, brand experience, Hyatt Hotels Corporation. “We hadn’t set out to hear from women specifically, but they were an extremely vocal group as we toured and tried to gain insights on how people travel today and what they’re looking for in the hotel experience.” Wright noted that it made sense to focus on women as a first step to highlight the changes the company had made after gaining those insights. However, she also added that the changes were made for all guests. “They were based on insights from women, but the men are happy to have them as well,” she said.
Those changes included a healthier room service menu, upgraded amenities, and Hyatt Has It, a program in which a menu card is left in guestrooms letting the occupants know what amenities the hotel has on hand, from phone chargers to toothpaste. “Women don’t like to ask for things. We’ll go source something from the gift shop vs. call down to the front desk to ask for it,” said Wright, explaining that Hyatt Has It encourages women to ask for things, since they know it’s available.
“Women also find it difficult to maintain their health while on the road with current room service menus and the lack of opportunity to work out in the room or gym,” she said, adding that Hyatt focused on upgrading bath amenities because most women “end up bringing their own because they think everything feels a bit mediocre in the hotel.”
Once the changes to the hotel experience had been made, the company embarked on a yearlong campaign focused on women who stay in hotels eight-plus nights a year. “The effort with Poptent was a part of a much larger effort that spanned across digital media and print,” said Wright. “We had a fully integrated plan that reached our target throughout her day in all of the media that she’s already typically in.” She noted that roughly 50-60% of that plan was digital.
“We really wanted to focus on impacting our social component of the plan, using our new social channels that have recently become a part of what we do here at Hyatt with any campaign effort, and be able to reach the target in new and different ways,” she continued. Hyatt had been briefed on Poptent’s capabilities about six months before it partnered with them. “In this situation, we felt like it was a natural fit because we were able to hear from the voices of these creators, and our campaign was really all about how we listened to women and making the experience better,” said Wright. “This was a way for us to further demonstrate that we were listening and also get fresh content. Knowing their capabilities and knowing they had a huge group of creators that we could tap into, why not try something different?”
Poptent allows companies to do either a closed or open assignment. Open briefs allow any of the creators to submit a video; in a closed brief, Poptent selects a few of the best creators for that particular assignment to submit a video. “Given that it was our first time working with them, we wanted to do the closed assignment,” explained Wright. “We also hadn’t announced all of the changes we were making just yet, so we wanted to keep it as a closed brief. We got some really amazing ideas from the creators… there were tons of great videos that came through for us to consider.”
Wright noted that the entire process was seamless from sending over the brief all the way through to the selection of videos. First, the company chose the Hotel Klepto series, which included a video of a woman admitted to stealing bath products from hotels even though they were usually awful… but with Hyatt’s new amenities, she’s taking products she’ll actually use. “That was the initial video submission through the brief process, and we thought that the actress had a lot of charisma,” said Wright. “She was fun, real and a new way to speak to the women we were looking to reach. We decided to curate two additional videos with her and the director that submitted the piece, and we had a series of three stories to highlight our key proof points: the bath amenities, the menu and Hyatt Has It.” The company also chose Excess Baggage, a one-off video in which a woman overpacks for a business trip.
Next, Hyatt produced a Poptent brief that was public. “From that brief, we got a ton of additional great ideas, and the Kate series was born out of that,” said Wright. “With that series, we really decided to freshen things up and take a little bit of a different direction. The Kate character is a little bit more exotic, a little younger.”
Wright noted that the videos are humorous, but that they do so without mocking or condescending to women. “Especially with Hotel Klepto, I feel that she plays in the right space,” she said. “You have to have fun with her.
“As we were evaluating the different products that came over, there were more that hit home and resonated vs. not,” she continued. “Some of the directors and creators were women and that was helpful, but even the male directors had an understanding of women’s needs and of the brief and were able to deliver in the space that made sense.”
All of the pieces were seeded on YouTube, pushed through Hyatt’s social channels, and promoted through a variety of efforts of the digital and social team. “With the video seeding on YouTube, we learned a lot about how to get the word out there, accumulate views in the right way and reach the appropriate target, versus putting content out there and hoping that someone comes to it,” said Wright. “Video has become a large part of our planning process and integrating that into any campaign we do.”
Wright noted that Poptent would definitely be in the consideration set when the brief is right from a larger group of creators, adding that there are also times when a more traditional agency model works best. “For example, for Park Hyatt, we weren’t interested in going out to a broad range of creators; we really wanted to create a more traditional video to support their efforts,” she said.
“We’ve really worked to expand ourselves in the digital and social space over the last 12-18 months,” said Wright. “We’re really trying to leverage cutting-edge opportunities. Media in the digital space is constantly evolving so being able to be adaptable to that and then also seek out new opportunities and be first to market in key digital areas has been very important to us, and there’s been a huge focus on that as a company.”