Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?
Overview:
Virgin Hotels New York City opened its doors in late 2022 amid a crowded and competitive hospitality landscape in Manhattan. Although Virgin’s brand awareness and identity are well-established among travelers, the company still needed a comprehensive and effective strategy to raise awareness, drive bookings and stand out in one of the world’s most-visited global cities.
Goals:
Throughout 2023, the primary goal was to elevate awareness and interest for the property as part of the well-known Virgin Hotels brand. Heading into 2024, the goal shifted slightly to aggressively driving bookings via implementation of a full-funnel strategy, while maintaining a return on ad spend of at least 10:1. This was achieved via a multi-level approach, beginning with a demographically targeted general awareness social media campaign highlighting location, amenities and property features. A rooms campaign followed, spotlighting unique offer details and vivid imagery. This was in turn followed by video-based stories and reels that further called attention to the property and special packages.
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 outcome of the campaign saw Virgin NYC realizing significant year-over-year growth in performance, with an increase of over 100% in both bookings and revenue during the targeted period. This growth was driven by several key, innovative factors:
• Separation of social feed from story/reel metrics, with discrete budgets for each that allowed the scaling of tactics independently, leading to better optimization.
• The use of a diverse creative mix — featuring strong visuals such as videos and high-impact images — played a crucial role in capturing consumer interest.
• Copy with a strong, direct hook and a strong CTA that consistently resonated with the target audience while staying true to the brand identity.
• Continuous monitoring and analysis of audience behavior, which enabled the team to quickly identify the most effective creative elements and messaging.
• Strategic budget optimizations and monitoring of returns allowed the allocation of additional budget to capitalize on the opportunities where anticipated returns were exceeded.
Return on Investment: How much revenue has the piece or campaign generated and how does this compare to your goal? What was the return on investment?
Overall Campaign Performance:
• Impressions: 7.88M
• Clicks: 174,000
• CTR: 2.21%
• Bookings: 1,000
• Revenue: $1M
• ROAS: 13.8:1 (with retargeting ROAS of 23:1)
Entry Title
Virgin Hotels New York City’s Strategic Launch for Awareness & Bookings in a Competitive Market
Division
Digital - Social Media Campaign