Marketing Objectives:
Clearly state your marketing goals.
What did your company strive to achieve using this piece or program?The overall goal of Best Western’s 2019 spring promotion was to reach travelers at multiple touchpoints to drive direct online bookings at bestwestern.com. The brand’s specific marketing objectives for the promotion included: - Increase loyalty and retention among Best Western Rewards members by offering them a special promotion - Leverage innovative marketing strategies and techniques to connect with today’s modern travelers - Drive enrollments into the award-winning Best Western Rewards loyalty program - Encourage guests to book directly at bestwestern.com - Drive hotel reservations during the spring season and incentivize future bookings - Generate awareness for BWR’s “Stay 2X and Get a Free Night” messaging campaign and educate members on the benefits of the reward’s program.

Target Audience:
Who was/is the target audience?
Characterize the composition, size, and location of your target audience.Best Western’s Spring Promotion messaging strategies targeted BWR’s more than 30 million core and elite-level members as well as potential members. Some of the specific audiences targeted across business and leisure categories in both Canada and the United States included: - BWR members who book with Best Western’s preferred partners including AAA, CAA, and AARP - Digital-savvy millennials who are active on social media - Travelers in-market, looking for a place to stay using wayfinding apps like Waze - Families with children and parents who make travel decisions for their families - Budget-minded travelers who are interested in loyalty redemption opportunities - Road warriors who travel frequently for work and are interested in convenient amenities - Motorcycle enthusiasts who need convenient and comfortable accommodations while on the road

Research, Planning, and Implementation:
What market research was conducted prior to planning the piece/campaign?In an evolving media landscape, reaching today’s traveler requires a smart, dynamic marketing strategy across traditional, digital and innovative media. With that in mind, Best Western focused on engaging guests along multiple points in their customer journey, reaching them at critical moments along the path to booking. The campaign strategically included a fully integrated media plan that utilized digital display banners, social media, search, geolocation ads, linear TV and digital video to extend Best Western’s promotional reach. Best Western used data-driven targeting strategies across mobile and desktop channels in U.S. and Canadian markets to convert in-market travelers to book. The campaign leveraged tiered retargeting strategies to serve customized creative variations to match the right consumer. For example, Best Western served customized displays featuring AAA messaging to users who visited bestwestern.com/AAA to make a clear and relevant connection to their experience.

Message:
What is the key message intended for the piece/campaign?
What differentiates your piece/campaign in the marketplace?The campaign’s digital creative strategically messaged that guests can “Stay 2X and Get a Free Night,” while leveraging visuals like a modern businesswoman and a variety of hotel brands to illustrate how Today’s Best Western offers a diverse brand portfolio, each designed to meet the needs of today’s modern travelers. The campaign focused on competitive conquesting tactics that targeted travelers on the road and enticed them to choose Best Western by showing value with promotional messaging and ease of booking with tap-to-map directions from their real-time location to the nearest hotel location. For example, knowing that 43% of road trippers book hotels while en route, Best Western partnered with Waze to use location-based data to target users looking for a nearby hotel. The CTA “Drive There” brought ease to the user by allowing them to receive direct navigation to the hotel, proving to be highly successful with 515,000+ navigations YTD.

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.As part of the brand’s loyalty strategy, the spring promotion supported Best Western Rewards 49% contribution of brand revenue fiscal year to date in 2019. These results demonstrate that the brand’s spring campaign helped to improve the brand’s overall bottom line while also attracting loyal customers. Best Western’s 2019 spring promotion was considered highly successful, delivering the additional results: - More than 44,500 gross reservations booked through bestwestern.com via digital media - More than 100,000 free night vouchers issued to loyal members. - More than 101 million digital advertising banner impressions - More than 15 million impressions from OTT and CTV platforms - More than 37 million impressions from social media platforms - More than 79 million digital video impressions - More than 15 million native advertising impressions

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 Spring Promotion

DivisionDigital Marketing

Sub-categoryDigital Campaign

CategoryIntegrated Market Campaign for Consumers (B2C)

Classification