Marriott Hands Influencers Snapchat Spectacles To Create Authentic Branded Content

What Happened
Marriott is the latest brand to leverage Snapchat’s video-recording Spectacles sunglasses to produce branded content for social campaigns. The hotel chain gave four social influencers a pair of Spectacles, who will use it to create 10-second vertical video clips for its Rewards loyalty program that will run as ads on Snapchat. The influencers will take over the brand’s Snapchat account about once a month to share their one-week stays at Marriott properties in Berlin, New York, Dubai, and Seoul, leveraging their social stardom to attract some followers for the brand. The campaign is scheduled to run from now through June.

What Brands Need To Do
Snapchat only started selling Spectacles last November, and despite its limited availability, it has been quickly adopted by brand marketers to create authentic, off-the-cuff short videos that are perfect for online and social campaigns. Previously, Hyatt also handed out some Spectacles to some of its employees to share their daily activities at Hyatt properties around the world. This Marriott campaign takes it one step further by mixing in social influencers and paid ads to attract a wider audience on Snapchat.

Perhaps more intriguingly, Snapchat has been testing some AR-enabled filters that may be activated by Spectacles, which would allow brands to add digital activations to their physical marketing materials such as billboards and posters. As Snap continues to bring augmented reality technology to the mass market with its camera-centric products, brands will need to start to think about how AR may add value to their products, services, and marketing efforts.

 


Source: AdWeek

 

Marriott Revamps Mobile App Based On User Activities

What Happened
Looking to enhance its customer experience on mobile, Marriott Hotel has updated its app based on guest feedback to offer a more intuitive user experience. The revamped app sports a “one-button” ergonomic design that is easy to navigate, along with a swipeable home screen that let users easily switch from different scenarios such as checking-in or planning future stays. Each swipe will bring up a new page that brings up the most relevant information for their needs within those contexts, such as access to Marriott Rewards account information or personalized content delivered via the app’s built-in messaging service called mPlaces. The international hotel chain has achieved some early successes with its mobile app, which drives $1.7 billion in annual bookings.

What Brands Need To Do
Marriott is certainly not the first brand to adopt the swipeable designed popularized by dating app Tinder – cosmetic retailer Sephora also opted for a swipe-based interface for its mobile app, – but the way the hotel chain used this mechanism to let guests easily navigate the app through different stages of their travel and quickly get to what they need. As more brands rush into the mobile space, they should take note and learn to design it in a mobile-intuitive way that presents a user experience that matches with consumer behavior.

 


Source: Travel&Tour World

Marriott Develops Original Content For Branded VR Experience

What Happened
Guests at Marriott Hotels can now order a “VRoom Service,” which offers visitors virtual tours of Chile, China, and Rwanda, powered by Samsung Gear VR headset. The hotel created these distinct global travel experiences in partnership with Framestore VR Studio, marking it latest foray into developing original VR content to bring immersive experiences for its customers. Previously, Marriott also offered visitors virtual tours of London and Hawaii with the help of the Oculus Rift headset.

What Brands Should Do
Similar to Birchbox’s experiment with virtual reality earlier this year, Marriott joins a handful of early-adopting brands that are producing original VR content for the VR platform to bring added value to the customers. For brands that seek to immersively engage with the audience, now would be the time to start experimenting with VR content creation.

 


Source: Digiday

Header image taken from Marriott’s YouTube Video “VR Postcards