Dive Brief:
- Motto by Hilton, Hilton’s compact lifestyle hotel brand, launched a social content series that takes inspiration from choose-your-own-adventure video games, per news shared with Marketing Dive.
- Each video, shot in an immersive first-person point of view, shows guests as they are freed from mundane tasks by getting assigned “missions” and meeting up with creators. The content, which is running on Instagram and TikTok, features guest appearances from influencers Hannah Berner, Connor Wood and Kordell Beckham.
- Motto by Hilton wants to better appeal to Gen Z and millennial, or “zillennial,” travelers and spotlight core properties. More marketers are taking a social- and influencer-first approach to reach younger consumers who have tuned out traditional media and gravitated to vacation rental websites like Airbnb.
Dive Insight:
Motto by Hilton’s “Guest Quests” series seeks to imbue travelers with a feeling of “main character energy,” a bit of internet slang that refers to people seeing themselves as the protagonist in a larger story. To that end, the effort takes a page from video games while leveraging influencers to highlight hotel experiences that Gen Z and millennial consumers may value. Motto by Hilton developed “Guest Quests” with Movers+Shakers, an agency that focuses on social-first marketing.
In each video, the viewer is shown a first-person POV of a guest at a Motto by Hilton location as they are assigned a “mission” by a disembodied voiceover, such as making the most of a work trip or getting over an ex, in a fashion that recalls franchises like James Bond and Mission: Impossible. As the guests try to accomplish these tasks, they bump into influencers who take them on more exciting excursions that provide a peek at Motto by Hilton amenities, including a rooftop bar and hidden sound bath room. Along the way, the screen is overlaid with faux video game iconography, like “press X” button prompts, spinning character sprites and gauges tracking energy levels.
Creators appearing in “Guest Quest” include comedian Connor Wood in Philadelphia, comedian and podcast host Hannah Berner in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood and “Love Island USA” star Kordell Beckham in Rotterdam. Hilton is positioning the series as a way to grow brand awareness for Motto, a brand that focuses on major city centers and promotes cozy, compact rooms that are part of a larger capsule hotel trend.
“Our goal was to blur the lines between travel content and cultural storytelling,” said Geoffrey Goldberg, co-founder and chief creative officer of Movers+Shakers, in a statement. “By leaning into the language of TikTok and creating experiences that feel playful, social-first, and participatory, we’re not just advertising hotels, we’re sparking stories that travelers want to live and share.”
Hilton has been accelerating development of its more modern lifestyle hotel brands, which include Motto, Tempo and Canopy by Hilton.
