Campaign Imminent: Marriott expands agency relationship (Score 31)

Sales Lead: Marriott recently expanded its global partnership with On Hold Marketing & Communications with two new contracts.

  • The hotel's Courtyard High Point (NC) and Santa Clara Marriott (CA) will now work with the agency on brand-approved on-hold messaging with local customization.
  • The company will likely:
    • Continue shifting spend
      • I expect this to involve an increase in localized ad space in NC and CA
    • Implement strategy shifts
    • Seek additional new agency 0partners
  • Target demographic: 
    • B2C: Older millennials and Gen-X with a strong male skew
    • B2B: Business DMs in need of places for conferences, meetings, etc.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recent leadership shifts:

  • This announcement closely follows the recent hires of digital strategy and planning VP (October 2022) and marketing, personalization, and audiences VP Hilary Cook (November 2022).

Additional spending insights:

  • Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
    • YTD spend: So far this year, Marriott has spent approximately $21.8m on national TV commercials, up 5% from the approximately $20.8m spent within the same 2022 timeframe.
    • Last year: The company spent around $34m on this channel last year after having spent less than a third of this, around $9.7m, in 2021.
    • 2023 ad programming: Marriott's 2023 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as the 2021 NCAA Basketball Tournament, the 2023 Pro Bowl Games, the 2023 NFL Draft, and the 2020 NBA All-Star Game.
  • Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
    • YTD spend: The hotel chain has allocated roughly $30.4m toward digital ads YTD, 2% less than the roughly $31.1m allocated by this point last year.
    • YTD data: Since the beginning of 2023, Marriott has earned ~4b digital impressions via Instagram (39%), Facebook (38%), YouTube (15%), desktop display (6%), and mobile display (2%) ads.
    • Last year: The company's estimated full-year 2022 spend decreased by 3% to $52.8m from that of $54.2m in 2021.
  • Additional channel insights  
    • Marriott utilizes Google Ads along with OOH, digital, local broadcast, print, radio, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and online video (via Youtube.com, Youtube IOS, and Youtube Android) ads.
    • The company sponsors podcasts such as Fresh Air, The BOB & TOM Show Free Podcast, Dave & Chuck the Freak, The Glass Cannon Podcast, and Fresh Air.
    • Marriott invests in short-form DRTV ads.
      • ​​​​​​​The company has extremely highly concentrated network TV coverage and will not likely launch a new campaign soon.

Additional agency insights:

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; podcast insights by Podchaser; DRTV insights by Media Analytics.


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