Marketing Objectives:
Clearly state your marketing goals.
What did your company strive to achieve using this piece or program?Partnering with Disney ABC, a trusted and recognizable brand within the youth audience segment, drove Best Western’s overarching goal of building awareness among youth and family travelers. Primary marketing objectives and goals for Best Western’s 2019 summer partnership with Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 4 were to: - Leverage innovative marketing strategies and techniques to connect with Disney’s audience of kids and families across multiple touch points - Position Best Western as a trusted travel partner for families and fans of Toy Story 4 - Uniquely engage Disney audiences to increase brand awareness for Best Western - Maximize Best Western’s most impactful partnership opportunity by building a clear connection between summer travel and the sponsorship - Drive hotel reservations on bestwestern.com during the peak summer travel season, particularly with family travelers - Foster positive brand association with strong storytelling, differentiating Best Western from the competitive set.

Target Audience:
Who was/is the target audience?
Characterize the composition, size, and location of your target audience.Disney ABC’s vast audience base meant Best Western was able to reach a wide array of audiences outside of their established customer base, increasing the effectiveness of the campaign. The target audiences for the campaign included: - Disney Digital Network’s exclusive audience segment of summer family travelers, available via first party data that identifies family decision makers who are planning travel during the summer - Families traveling with kids ages 6-18 looking for kid-focused travel accommodations during summer vacation - Families with children who are active on social media and actively integrate their digital interests into family activities - Disney’s large, loyal and dynamic fan base, including fans of the Toy Story franchise - Parents who are dedicated to providing their children with quality entertainment and activities - Best Western brand loyalists and 30+ million Best Western Rewards members, who were eligible to receive Best Western’s summer promotional offer.

Research, Planning, and Implementation:
What market research was conducted prior to planning the piece/campaign?With its 12 consecutive years of partnership with Disney developing family-focused campaigns, Best Western has ample data on the best tactics to engage its target audiences. The youth marketing campaign was developed to promote the theatrical release of Toy Story 4 and Best Western’s summer promotion. From this research, the brand focused on delivering dynamic, custom co-branded executions in cross-platform environments to better engage the target audience of summer family travelers. The campaign’s key co-branded elements featured Toy Story 4 characters and included: - Co-branded video airing on Disney’s linear networks, branded app, social channels and YouTube channels - Organic and paid social media, including interactive Instagram Stories and quizzes - Digital marketing, including display ads and email campaigns - Direct mail and in-hotel promotional materials, including window clings, table tents and digital displays prominently located in 2,100 North American hotel lobbies

Message:
What is the key message intended for the piece/campaign?
What differentiates your piece/campaign in the marketplace?The campaign’s creative strategically promoted Best Western’s summer $20 gift card offer via co-branded elements, which included Toy Story 4 branding and character imagery. Audiences were enticed to book through the key message that, “Your Story Starts at Today’s Best Western,” inspiring summer travel with clever tie-ins to the movie. Calls to action encouraged consumers to see the movie and book directly at bestwestern.com for increased value. Pairing recognizable Toy Story 4 characters with Best Western messaging positioned the brand as a modern travel partner for family and youth audiences. The campaign communicated that “summer travel comes to life at Today’s Best Western” and that Best Western could help families “see the world this summer,” because “the sky’s the limit for summer adventure” to play on themes from the movie. This creative storytelling was implemented across the campaign to appeal to its audience in a playful way across multi-channel, integrated elements.

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. Understandably, maintenance is another major part of CSR. If you have continued to actively and consistently work on your CSR process; please add those actions to your results description.

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.The 2019 campaign resulted in impressive engagement rates, achieving established goals and objectives. Results for the integrated campaign include: - Display media generated over 3,300 clicks to bestwestern.com and 69% of total reservations on bestwestern.com - YouTube skippable video featuring Toy Story 4 clips delivered more than 2.1 million video starts and 241k+ completed views to date - Co-branded social posts on Best Western’s channels delivered more than 10.7 million impressions and 54k+ engagements - 2,100+ North American hotels displayed in-property assets prominently in lobbies - More than 500,000 travel cards were distributed as part of the promotion - $118M total during the Toy Story 4 opening weekend, setting the record for fourth-largest launch for an animated film to date and third film in 2019 to cross $100 million during opening weekend, behind “Captain Marvel” and “Avengers: Endgame.”

Research, Planning and Implementation
What research was conducted prior to planning the initiative? Describe the step by step efforts to plan and implement the initiative in a way that would allow others to be able to duplicate your efforts. Were their individuals or teams that offered leadership to ensure effectiveness?

Message and Communication
What were your key messages? How did you differentiate your messages? What was the purpose of the communications? How did you communicate your actions to the target audience? What other stakeholders or media did you approach for assistance?

Results and Impact
What results had the greatest impact on your target audience? What results were directly tied to the HSMAI Foundation Mission? Which of your original goals was achieved? Please comment on the process and the outcomes. What measures were used to determine success? How was the data collected? What is the status of the initiative now – will it continue? Was it effective? Will it be used continuously? Will you help others use the initiative to help the industry meet its needs for exceptional talent? How?

Message:
What is the key messages intended for the piece/ campaign?
What differentiates your piece/campaign in the marketplace?
What helped you breakthrough on mobile?

Results:
What original goals did you achieve and how?
How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign?
Entrants should provide quantifiable metrics tied to real business results (eg brand lift, leads, or bookings generated).

Project Analysis:
Please provide a brief background on the project and your efforts to preserve the destination’s natural, cultural and historic heritage.

Objectives and Goals:
What did organization set out to achieve in undertaking this project?

Creativity and Innovation:
What new and innovative ideas did you incorporate in either your method of outreach or in the implementation of the project that you think could inspire others committed to sustainability in the tourism and travel industry?

Communication:
How did you communicate your actions to the public, the media and other key stakeholders and what was the aim of the message?
How did you generate publicity in order to build awareness of, or support corporate values on your sustainability initiatives.

Results:
How did you measure the effectiveness of your efforts and what direct and tangible results did you achieve?

Leadership:
Please list the individual in a leadership role responsible for the project and how would you characterize their commitment to promoting preservation and sustainability best practices in the travel and tourism industry?

Entry TitleBest Western’s 2019 Disney Summer Partnership

DivisionAdvertising

Sub-categoryAdvertising Campaign

CategoryYouth

Classification