Families compete, video viewers vote online in Hyatt campaign
Much of the buzz around consumer-generated video as an online marketing tool has been centered around what’s happening in the 18-24-year-old early adopter crowd. But Hyatt Resorts and Hotels has found a target for a new online marketing campaign incorporating user-generated video in moms researching family vacations online.
That online audience fit Hyatt’s strategic objective of getting consumers to stretch their view of Hyatt hotels as a destination for business travelers to see Hyatt resorts as a family vacation venue, says Jim Forni, vice president and executive producer at Curium Studios, the unit of interactive agency Critical Mass that is producing the Hyatt campaign.
The online campaign will combine consumer-generated video with professionally produced video content. The Hyatt Resorts Ultimate Adventure Challenge invited families to submit audition videos. Hyatt advertised the contest on its own site, with an e-mail campaign targeting its frequent travelers and banner ads on selected sites and online networks. Hyatt produced a video spot for its own site demonstrating how to prepare and upload an audition video and demonstrating what kind of content it was looking for: families engaged in activities demonstrating “a spirit of adventure,” Forni says.
Hyatt posted what it judged to be the best of the submissions on its web site, and 20 families were invited to a live audition in June. From that audition, five families were selected to compete in the Ultimate Adventure Challenge, with activities ranging from roping cattle to a scavenger hunt, filmed at three Hyatt resorts. Curium is filming the competition, but when the webisodes are posted on Hyatt’s site in August, they’ll also include video shot by family contestants equipped with helmet cameras.
Online voters at Hyatt’s web site will pick the eventual winner. The prize is 50 free nights at Hyatt Resorts—but that won’t go only to the winning family. With the campaign objectives not only to get people to submit a video but also to get more people to watch and vote, one randomly selected voting viewer will get the same prize.
“The ROI for the campaign will be based on a formula demonstrating that the amount of time families spend online being immersed in this content is translating into more push-through to the sites for those resorts and more bookings of family vacations,” Forni explains. While he didn’t disclose the cost of the campaign, Forni says Hyatt is measuring the cost against the high revenue typically associated with family vacation bookings.
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