MARRIOTT RUNNING RUGBY

TitleMARRIOTT RUNNING RUGBY
BrandMARRIOTT HOTELS
Product / ServiceHOSPITALITY
CategoryC04. Competitions & Promotional Games
EntrantMARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL Hong Kong, HONG KONG
Idea Creation OOPS GROUP MARKETING Hong Kong, HONG KONG
Production OOPS GROUP MARKETING Hong Kong, HONG KONG

Credits

Name Company Position
Winkie Wong Marriott International Senior Director, Brand & Marketing, Asia Pacific
Fanko Yim The OOPS Group Co-founder

The Campaign

This game has drawn inspiration from Parkour (or "free running"), a physical activity where participants attempt to traverse obstacles in their path in a smooth and fluid motion. The goal of the game is to collect rugby, energy, medal and hamburger along the track while jumping to avoid obstacles along the track that will deduct a life. If all 3 lives are all gone, the game will be over. There are six levels with increasing difficulty, each representing a key destination of the brand - Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, Jeju, Sydney, Fiji. On the ending page, the player is asked to share his result on Facebook and fill out a simple e-registration form to join Marriott Rewards. After completing both steps, the players with the highest scores will win a set of Rugby Sevens tickets or hotel voucher from one of the cities listed above.

The Brief

Overall budget: USD 44,840 Game development: USD 23,000 Game booth technical on-site support: USD 1,140 Paid media budget (Facebook ad): USD 18,500 KOL partnership (YouTube video): USD 2,200

Creative Execution

The online game was split into 2 phases. In Play Period 1 between 7 and 23 March, 2 participants with the highest scores were awarded with a pair of entry tickets to Hong Kong Sevens respectively. In Play Period 2 between 24 March and 20 April, 10 participants with the highest scores were awarded with stay vouchers from 5 Marriott Hotels across the region including Fiji, Sydney, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Bangkok which also appeared in the game represented by different levels. During the event from 6 to 8 April, we also activated the game at the Marriott Rewards Booth in the Hong Kong Stadium by projecting the browser from iPAD to a large TV screen. Everyone could try (children under 12 years old accompanied by adults) and have fun watching other people playing. The daily highest-scoring player was awarded with hotel stay vouchers sponsored by Marriott International hotels.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The online game reached a total of 486,000+ audience in APAC of which 3,360+ were unique players with 12,200+ times of playing. The Game Ads generated total 9,519 game page landing views, exceeding KPI by 376%. 218 Marriott Rewards enrolments were recorded from the game as well. During the 3 days of the HK7S game, 750+ participants played the Mini Game in the stadium. The brand has gained high awareness across the region and the world, however, there has been a perception that the brand is very much business-focused. The Rugby Sevens was a great opportunity to strengthen the perception and consideration of the brand as preferred hotel choice for leisure travelers. Also a great example of how we are using our brand to connect with people then demonstrate the benefits of our loyalty programs.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Marriott International's loyalty programme Marriott Rewards sponsored Hong Kong’s biggest sporting event – Hong Kong Rugby Sevens Week for the third year, between 4 and 6 April 2018. Leveraging this event to engage next gen rugby fans and get exposure for the group's flagship Marriott Hotels brand, which is known for innovation, a pre-event buzz and marketing campaign was launched in March.

The HK Sevens audience was diverse - with locals, expats and foreigners who flew in for the event. For this particular brand engagement, we decided to focus on Hong Kong locals - both English and Cantonese speakers. Through customised targetting on Facebook with an ad, we reached our audience who are: 1) Interested in Rugby, Sports, Game, Marriott Rewards, Marriott Hotels, Technology and Invention 2) Frequent travellers or Frequent international travellers 3) Leisure Travellers or Business Travellers We also partnered with a popular Hong Kong based KOL, HappyMabo to create a game demonstration short video on her YouTube channel to engage Cantonese-speaking locals (video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1NmcTtsFDw). All players were directed to a unique Marriott Rewards enrolment page after the game which was managed by our headquarter and regular weekly reports were shared to track results.

Links

Website URL