Marriott International has launched a campaign using scented out of home (OOH) day part and weather triggers, to tap into moments when people are looking for escape from daily life. The campaign, created by Publicis Media’s Marriott 1 Media (M1M), is designed to get consumers thinking about booking their next holiday by bringing their portfolio of brands together to showcase the extensive range of hotels and destinations that are available to consumers as part of the Marriott Bonvoy travel programme.
Research shows that some of the biggest drivers of people booking a holiday is the idea of ‘escaping something’. M1M used this insight to tap into key ‘escape’ moments including commuting and bad weather to drive the campaign. These escape moments are the centre of the plan, which is running across OOH, radio, print, social media and digital.
As part of the OOH element, from 27 January, Marriott is taking over Oxford Circus tube station, using all five tunnels in the underground and using scents to match the key destinations being profiled. For example, the advertising that shows Greece will have a scent of coconut, Dubai will smell of oud, while the image of Spain will give off the scent of sweet oranges.
The exotic smelling ads will also appear in print magazines. Audio, display and social ads will focus on connecting with consumers during the key escape moments using geo-targeting software in proximity to the OOH sites. This will be paired with dynamic creative to deliver relevant messages based on time of day and weather conditions. So when it’s cold and raining outside, the creative message will reflect this and suggest somewhere warm for the consumer to fly to.
“This campaign is the perfect opportunity for Marriott to reach potential travel bookers while they’re on their daily commute,” said Christina Purnell, senior director, performance marketing – Europe at Marriott International. “Research shows that ‘needing to escape from something in your life’ is one of the biggest triggers for people booking travel and holidays. January and February are the times when the post-Christmas and January blues are the strongest and we believe that the sensory experiences will trigger that desire for a holiday.”
The campaign will run in the UK, France and Germany across all media channels for the next six weeks. M1M is responsible for developing the overall strategy, with PSI handling the planning and buying for OOH, along with creative agency Radical Path who designed the assets for print, social, digital and OOH. Publicis Media agency, Digitas UK, produced the audio creative, in partnership with A Million Ads, to deliver a dynamic element to personalise to weather, time of day and various different traveller profiles.
