Creativity is the core of hospitality marketing and PR, and a global hospitality sales and marketing association recognizes and rewards it through its annual awards program. As a full-service management client of MCI USA, the association provides invaluable tools, insights, and expertise to hotels and their partners. Their awards program honors the most innovative and impactful advertising, digital media, public relations and integrated campaigns that have captivated travelers and boosted business for hotels, airlines, cruise lines, and other sectors. Award recipients, selected from nearly 1,200 entries by industry and media experts, showcase the pinnacle of creative achievement and are celebrated at an annual gala.
The Opportunity
The awards program highlights the marketing work of major hospitality brands aiming to engage travelers across the country. The association needed to implement new tactics to engage industry professionals with the awards program to boost participation and enhance its visibility. The primary goal was to uphold these awards as a benchmark of industry excellence and to inspire professionals to reach this standard. To achieve this, the association focused on two key objectives: increasing participation in the awards and effectively showcasing the winners.
Storytelling as a Strategy
Leveraging MCI USA’s in-house expertise as the association’s full-service management partner, the team devised a strategy to reinvigorate the presentation of the awards program and its winners.
The approach involved evolving the content delivery to make it more dynamic and engaging for members, ensuring that the celebrations of winners were both inspiring and influential across the hospitality industry.
To achieve this, the content team conducted video interviews of top award winners, showcasing their achievements and stories, and the impact of their work. These interviews celebrated the honorees, provided content the association could share widely, and served as inspiration for other industry professionals to enhance their work and submit future award entries.
Results
This refreshed strategy yielded results, including:
▪️ Submissions for the awards program increased by 23% the following year.
▪️ Social media engagement grew due to engaging video interviews of platinum award winners.
▪️ The content for the association’s weekly membership newsletter was elevated, becoming more relevant and engaging.
Strategic partnership with MCI USA allowed the association to create a more robust content strategy that led to the improvement of awards program engagement, confirming its position as a key event that drives industry standards and celebrates outstanding achievements in hospitality marketing and PR.
