Marketing Objectives:
Clearly state your marketing goals.
What did your company strive to achieve using this piece or program?Best Western’s marketing goals for the YouTube Director Mix campaign were to: • Deepen customer engagement and increase brand awareness among Best Western’s target audiences through customized messaging and video creative • Leverage and integrate data-driven targeting strategies to drive brand consideration, bookings and revenue • Position Best Western as a leader in the hospitality industry through innovative advertising partnerships • Showcase loyalty benefits, modern amenities and variety of hotel brands offered at Today’s Best Western Launched in the peak summer travel season, Best Western’s 2019 YouTube Director Mix campaign contributed to a larger, integrated campaign that offered Best Western Rewards members a $20 Best Western gift card after their first stay. The campaign was one part of a strategic media mix spanning across digital display, social media, linear TV, digital video and beyond.

Target Audience:
Who was/is the target audience?
Characterize the composition, size, and location of your target audience.Best Western’s YouTube Director Mix campaign leveraged Google’s suite of capabilities and first-party data to inform a robust targeting strategy. The campaign strategically served relevant video ads to the right person at the right time, reaching in-market travelers at critical moments in the path to booking. Best Western’s 2019 campaign was inclusive of 40 distinct target audiences. Audiences included Best Western Rewards (BWR) members, business travelers and family vacationers, with additional high-value audiences like motorcycle enthusiasts, dog lovers, foodies, sports fans and more. Using a mix of targeting and retargeting tactics, the campaign delivered 40 video variations to users based on real-time data and contextual relevance to their online habits, including content interests, searches and video topics. Best Western also used its own CRM data and a sophisticated Google AdWords campaign to reach and re-engage customers and look-a-like audiences.

Research, Planning, and Implementation:
What market research was conducted prior to planning the piece/campaign?Best Western’s 2018 YouTube Director Mix campaign performance demonstrated the strength and power of customized video marketing, with significant lifts in click-throughs, video completions, ad recall, consideration and brand interest over industry benchmarks. Best Western used YouTube Director Mix again in 2019 to deliver compelling, customized ads to audiences that demonstrated interest in relevant topics with precision. After determining key audiences based on past performance, Best Western developed base video layers with swappable text and video overlays that YouTube’s technology “mixed” to create a dynamic, varied series of ads. The program streamlines the creative process with ease and speed, without sacrificing creative quality. The campaign consisted of 40 individual 15-second ads and were launched using YouTube’s in-stream TrueView ads. Customized content was strategically added within the first five seconds of each video to capture viewers’ attention immediately.

Message:
What is the key message intended for the piece/campaign?
What differentiates your piece/campaign in the marketplace?The video campaign communicated that Best Western offers options to meet the needs of today’s modern traveler. The campaign’s base video followed the brand’s overall video storyline for 2019, featuring an exciting photo stream depicting the modern amenities and variety of hotel brands that Today’s Best Western offers. The campaign promoted Best Western’s summer offer with each video ad encouraging users to “Get a $20 Best Western gift card after your first stay.” Individual ad variations communicated unique messaging to reach the users’ specific interests. For example, if a user was viewing videos about baseball, they might see an ad with the message “Make Your Summer Travel a Home Run” with baseball visuals included. Likewise, if a user was viewing videos about parks and gardens, they might see an ad with the message “Travel Deals Are Blooming.” This approach created a clear connection between the consumers’ interests and Best Western to drive brand consideration.

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.Best Western’s innovative campaign built on the success of its 2018 Director Mix campaign with Google and YouTube. Preliminary results showcase that the campaign is delivering valuable return on investment in reaching and engaging prospective guests. As part of the brand’s loyalty strategy, the summer promotion supported Best Western Rewards 49% contribution of brand revenue fiscal year to date in 2019. These results demonstrate that the brand’s summer campaign helped to improve the brand’s overall bottom line while also attracting loyal customers. Additional campaign-to-date results include: - Contributed to Best Western’s more than 57,350 gross reservations for the summer promotional period - Garnered 17.5+ million impressions and 9.7 million digital video completed views - Producing a 55% video completion rate - Driving 18%+ higher video completions than hospitality industry benchmark

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 YouTube Director Mix Campaign

DivisionDigital Marketing

Sub-categoryDigital Marketing Series

CategoryMultimedia (Video, Flash, Animation) Series

Classification