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Does your advertising campaign need some housekeeping? Take
a page from Hilton Hotels & Resorts newest promotion, the Any Weekend,
Anywhere Sale.
You may have heard Hilton’s radio spots promoting its campaign.
Similar to prescription-drug commercials that detail long lists of side effects,
Hilton humorously tells listeners not to operate heavy machinery on their
weekend getaway unless it’s a golf cart because that would be awesome. They
also joke if you are pregnant or plan on becoming pregnant than you really,
really need a weekend getaway.
This same satire fueled the recent launch of Hilton Urgent
Vacation Care Center,
an interactive website featuring personal diagnoses of vacation needs and
customized prescriptions urging people to take breaks, weekend getaways and
longer vacations.
While Web workers can certainly use some time away from the
computer screen, it’s Hilton’s innovate engagement tactics and consistent
marketing collateral that should catch their attention. Here are three terrific takeaways from Hilton’s advertising campaign:
Surveys
Short and fun surveys are a surefire way to build customer engagement
with your brand. Everyone loves to kill a few minutes answering questions about
the last time they took a vacation, their commute and other easy-to-answer
questions about themselves. Brainstorm surveys that would interest your
customer base. Like Hilton, include a quick form to gather people’s names,
email and physical addresses and newsletter preferences. Make sure to send
these new email subscribers a custom email message to relate to how they signed
up. You can use this list to target them further in the future as well.
Giveaways
Everyone loves getting something for free. As part of Hilton’s
campaign promotion, it is offering a chance to win one of 15 weekend getaways
between now and Feb. 28, 2013. While many ‘Net enterprises cannot afford to
give away such a valuable prize, companies can get creative with prizes and how
they run them. Use what you already have (e.g. extra inventory, a service you
can offer for free for a month, etc.). Another way of offering a more valuable
prize, is by teaming up with a complementary company - a digital gift basket, if you will.
Shareability
Speaking of teaming up, Hilton partnered with Onion Labs,
the in-house creative team of The Onion, to develop humorous illustrations to
run alongside each Vacationitis symptom including “Straight to Voicemailaria.” These memes can be shared on social media
platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Every digital part of your
advertising campaign should offer built-in shareable features.
