Marriott Bonvoy, the hospitality giant’s cross-brand loyalty program, last month launched a new global brand platform, “Wherever life's journey takes you, we'll see you there,” that seeks to position Bonvoy as a lifelong travel partner, rather than just a loyalty program. But instead of taking a traditional approach to developing an ad campaign, the company worked with creators to go from brief to delivered assets in just four weeks.
“Given the breadth and depth of our portfolio and the scale that we have, to be able to capture content around different properties scattered around the world is really a logistical and operational challenge,” said Behnaz Ghahramani, Marriott International’s senior vice president of global marketing. “We need to be much more agile and connected to the local markets, but do it at scale with speed and agility.”
To launch the brand platform, Marriott worked with creators to capture campaign content across 10 countries, 23 destinations and 14 Marriott hotel brands. The campaign kicked off in September and includes more than 1,600 out-of-home placements worldwide. In-flight entertainment and OOH will run through the end of the year, with social assets continuing into 2027.
Marriott hopes to engage consumers during the Q4 travel period when they are already in a travel mindset, as 71% of travelers are thinking about their next trip while at the airport, per Nielsen data shared by the brand. About 77% of flyers have taken an action during or after their trip when being exposed to an airport ad, Ghahramani said.
“It was a test. It wasn't perfect at all times, by any means, but I think it was a really unconventional way of approaching campaign and content creation,” Ghahramani said.
A creator operating system
Rather than working with creators directly, Marriott Bonvoy tapped agency Beautiful Destinations, which has an audience of over 50 million followers across platforms and relies on a network of over 650 creators.
“Marriott Bonvoy is the first major travel brand I have seen integrate our creator operating system as a globally scaled production partner,” Jeremy Jauncey, founder and CEO of Beautiful Destinations, said in emailed comments.
Marriott Bonvoy laid out a creative vision that revolved around the style — more intimate, more relatable, less overproduced — it wanted to establish with the new brand platform. The campaign spans channels that each have their own requirements.
“What you'll start to see in some of our content is maybe the sheets are crumpled, the meal is mid-meal as opposed to fully perfect… We wanted to tell the lens the way that a customer, a guest, is really experiencing it,” Ghahramani said.
The new production model arrives as investment and engagement with creators has turned the influencer market into a core media channel. In kind, marketers have rushed to collaborate and co-create with creators to make content and campaigns that are closer and more authentic with target audiences.
“[Creators] are much more attuned to their audiences and have a much more human-led approach, in that they are more personal, and travel is such a personal experience,” Ghahramani said. “We didn't look at it in a traditional form with one asset across all media — just slice it and dice it. We worked with the creators to think of how we can best capture the look and feel that we want… but really having the creators do that for us across the different destinations that we wanted to capture.”
Beyond points
Marriott Bonvoy recently grew to 300 million members and continues to drive demand, engagement and value creation, executives said in a recent earnings statement.
“We see [Bonvoy] as much more relational than transactional. We don't see this as a series of points to gain benefits and free nights — even though that's a perk people love being part of our program,” Ghahramani said. “The more we know about your interests and passions, the more we're able to really be there at all of these milestone moments and ensure that these are incredible experiences.”
Bonvoy is a key way the multinational hotel company, which operates almost 40 brands and more than 10,000 properties across 148 countries and territories, connects with consumers as they travel for work, leisure, family trips and other important life moments.
Marriott will celebrate its 100 year anniversary in 2027. The brand platform is part of the foundation of how the company will build on its legacy of consumer connection, and the creator-led campaign could help lead the way for the brand’s future.
“[The campaign] was very data-led, and we will be looking at our results from a data lens as well as brand lift studies, but we focus a lot on our attribution models and our mixed media [modeling] to see the impact of that work in driving the business for our properties,” Ghahramani said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of destinations and hotel brands included in the campaign and the number of Marriott Bonvoy members. It has been corrected.
