Working off a new brand platform that was launched in 2022, Hilton sought to elevate the role and importance of a stay at a hotel by placing hotel messaging front and center, disrupting the hotel and social industry. To do so, the brand created a campaign aimed at getting its target audience to "stay" with a long-form piece of social media content — a 10-minute TikTok ad — on a short form platform.
Objective
Hilton's objective for this campaign was to bring the concept of "It Matters Where You Stay" — a popular marketing message for the brand — to life by getting consumers to "stay" with a long-form piece of content on a short form platform. The campaign encouraged viewers to watch a branded video for its runtime of ten minutes for a chance to win 10 million Hilton Honors Points.
Context
To capitalize on pent up travel demand and differentiate from competitors, Hilton launched a new brand platform, "For the Stay," in June of 2022. This platform umbrellaed across every aspect of the business. Accompanied by a campaign titled, "It Matters Where You Stay," the platform brought Hilton's signature hospitality and care to life through cohesive messaging that elevated the all-important role of the hotel within travel — a message overlooked by modern travel marketers.
Post-launch, the brand was challenged to come up with a big idea that would continue the "It Matters" story and generate significant reach and buzz.
Target Audience
To determine the target audience, it was important to take into consideration the demographic of Hilton's current stayers. Since the ad would be running on TikTok, it was also critical that the brand aimed to reach those who had historically shown interest and previously engaged in content highlighting hospitality.
After analyzing that data, Hilton defined its target audience as adults in the United States over 25 years old who were interested in travel, food and beverage, and TV.
Creative and Media Strategy
When considering the audience's media habits, Hilton kept coming back to a platform on which people don't Stay in one spot: TikTok, where the optimal recommended video length is 21 to 34 seconds.
The Stay was created to differentiate from category norms and this activation was no exception. For this effort, Hilton disrupted a core TikTok tenet by creating the longest TikTok ad ever — dubbed "The TikTok You Stay In."
For media, Hilton took a storytelling approach to the plan, seeding the TikTok over three stages with an audience primed to receive the message: adults with a curated list of interests covering travel, food and beverage, and TV.
Stage One: Tease
Hilton baked in funds to promote a teaser video featuring Paris to prime the audience and build intrigue 24 hours before the full-length launch. Here, Hilton used TopFeed, a TikTok premium, high impact placement that reaches users as the first In Feed Video they see during a viewing session.
Stage Two: Launch
The following day, Hilton launched its ten-minute TikTok with high impact tactics to really make a splash.
Stage Three: Sustain
The day following the launch, Hilton used supplemental creator videos talking about The TikTok You Stay In to further the conversation and encourage additional engagement around what it means to Stay. These videos were also leveraged with TopFeed, ensuring the target audience saw them, and were appended with a CTA button that drove viewers to the ten-minute TikTok.
To ensure engagement, Hilton leaned on beloved creators to tell the story in a platform-native way. Alongside Paris Hilton, the brand featured the likes Chris Olsen and Boman Martinez Reid, who challenged viewers to watch until the end to win Hilton Honors Points, and more. Hilton built the content to be dueted, stitched, or otherwise playable.
Not only did this campaign achieve its objectives and goals, it exceeded benchmarks. Overall, the campaign delivered 35.7 million views, which was 86 times that of the average brand post. It also drove incremental reach from stitch and duet content, which delivered an additional 13.3 million views and over 435,000 engagements. Consumer reception was incredibly positive, with this buzzworthy video driving positive sentiment that was 12 points higher than the benchmark.
This campaign's efficacy further demonstrated the benefits for Hilton to break from the recent, formulaic messaging pillars within the hospitality industry. Moreover, as it coincided with success across the larger "For the Stay" initiative, this campaign solidified a possibility for successful, cohesive messaging across advertising platforms and channels, traditional and non-traditional alike.
For future efforts, it is evident that similar success can be achieved by ensuring the same key areas of consideration exist as the building blocks for disruption: meeting your audience where they are and speaking to them in a way that drives resonance through authentic messaging pillars and styles.
