Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program? Gaylord Hotels owns Christmas, holding annual special events that have historically driven nearly 40% of leisure revenue between events and room sales. However, as COVID-19 hit, Christmas looked to be in jeopardy. The hotel’s annual ICE! Event had to be cancelled because the ice carvers couldn’t get visas and willingness to travel had plummeted. In response, the brand pivoted, quickly launching a brand-new event – I Love Christmas Movies™ -- alongside its annual slate of Christmas programming. The Gaylord Marketing Organization was tasked with selling room nights, educating consumers about a new event, and selling tickets to the event, all in a compressed timeline. The team had six weeks to sell the event before opening – far less than the typical 20 weeks. Campaign goals included: • Drive RN sales • Drive RN packages sales • Increase awareness of the I Love Christmas (ILCM) event • Drive ILCM event ticket sales • Support other event ticket sales These goals were measured by: • ROAS/GRE • CTR • Website Traffic • Impressions & Reach • Gap to Goal (Ticket pace & RNs) The team built a two-phased campaign: 1) SO. MUCH. CHRISTMAS. an umbrella campaign showcasing the breadth of Gaylord’s Christmas offering and 2) an ILCM-specific campaign to introduce guests to the all-new event which drew heavily on the brand’s partnership with Warner Brothers. To accomplish the goals, the creative pieces for this campaign – along with the associated placement strategy – aimed to 1) showcase the scope of Gaylord’s Christmas offering, 2) reflect the reality of social distancing and safety at the resorts, and 3) drive conversions. The goal was to execute across a strategic mix of paid, owned, earned, and trade tactics, including: • Custom TV spots • Custom radio spots • Print Ads • Organic and Paid Social • Paid Digital & Native Advertising • Public Relations • OOH • Revamping websites • Email marketing • Affiliate marketing • Cardlytics, Affiliate marketing, and OTAs

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)The Gaylord Hotels team blew past its goals, driving exceptional performance across the campaign and executing successfully in record time. As of Nov. 30, combined digital marketing efforts drove a 6.1:1 ROAS, social CTR at 1.3%, and 169M impressions. Most importantly, these efforts drove RN/Package sales a combined 17% above pace/budget and ticket sales 23% above pace/budget – this despite increasing pandemic travel restrictions and a brand-new event. Each campaign tactic’s success was weighed against its intended goal – some tactics (e.g. print, OOH, and radio) were designed to drive top-level awareness of the event and landing page views. Others (e.g. paid digital, social, lower-funnel, etc.) were designed to drive landing page views or conversions. Lower-performing tactics were optimized or paused to allow for overall campaign optimization. Combined, this effort drove above benchmark performance. As of November 30, results were as follows: • 8 Custom TV spots across 9k+ placements for So. Much. Christmas. and ILCM reaching estimated GRP level of 275 • 8 Custom radio spots across 29k+ placements reaching estimated GRP level of 250 • 470 Print Ads • Organic Social drove 9M combined impressions & average 9.5% engagement rate • Affiliate Advertising: Revenue up 4x vs previous year • Website traffic up 93% for campaign-specific sites and 38% for ticketing sites. • Public Relations secured 1,320 mentions, 1.1B aggregate readership, and $2M AVE • 83 OOH placements • 169M Paid Social and Digital Impressions • Emails with audience of 34M users

Project Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the project and your company efforts to demonstrate good corporate citizenship in the areas of community involvement, environmental, or socially responsible practices.

Objectives and Goals: What did organization set out to achieve in undertaking this project in CSR? What were the goals you set to measure your success?

Results: How did you measure the effectiveness of your efforts and what direct and tangible results did you achieve? Please be as specific as possible and share the full impact of your efforts in CSR.

Leadership: Please list the individual in a leadership role responsible for the project and how would you characterize their commitment to promoting corporate social responsibility in the travel and tourism industry?

Situational Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the initiative and the problem, challenge or issue you were seeking to address in the areas of developing emerging talent and engaging existing talent to meet the demands of your business.

Goals: What did your organization set out to achieve in undertaking this initiative? What obstacles did you encounter?

Results and Impact: What results had the greatest impact on your target audience? Please comment on the process and the outcomes. What measures were used to determine success?

Situational Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the initiative and the nature of the issue you were trying to impact.

Goals: Clearly state your goals. What did you strive to achieve with this initiative?

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the initiative?

Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals and audience. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)

Entry TitleGaylord Hotels - SO MUCH CHRISTMAS & I Love Christmas Movies (Christmas 2020)

DivisionAdvertising - Consumer/Group Sales/Travel Trade

CategoryAdvertising