Marriott Bonvoy x Bidstack

Bidstack x Marriott Bonvoy

Marriott Bonvoy partnered with Bidstack, and Publicis to fuel travel inspiration through gaming as people returned to exploring the world in 2021.

Since 2020 Marriott Bonvoy’s audience has grown to include new-found domestic leisure travellers and with this new audience came new interests that required a different approach to marketing their services. The pandemic fuelled interest in gaming and in response to this Marriott Bonvoy developed a phased approach to testing, learning and finding the right places to excel within the space.

Globetrotting Gamers

According to GWI, gamers have a great passion for travel, 53% enjoy travelling and 27% are planning to purchase a domestic vacation in the next 3-6 months. Gamers as a whole are keen to get back to exploring and are 11% more likely than the average consumer to be spending more on travel this year compared to last.

This audience is also highly receptive to advertising, with 31% saying they tend to buy brands they’ve seen advertised. This influence is not limited to tangible products, as when Bidstack looks at those who play sports games in particular, they are 30% more likely than the general population to say that they are most influenced by advertising when deciding a holiday destination.

The Campaign

The campaign strategy focused on native in-game advertising, with branded experiences that simulated the real world within virtual environments.

Marriott Bonvoy’s ads were delivered into natural spaces within the virtual stadium and racetrack takeovers, custom vehicle wraps, unique character skins and social media amplification from some of the world’s biggest gaming franchises.

In Wildlife Studios’ renowned mobile game Tennis Clash, the partnership saw the Marriott Bonvoy brand feature across customised courts in New York and Sydney, on courtside banners, scoreboards and nets, on custom racket strings and across two unique outfit designs that helped integrate the brand seamlessly into the game’s virtual world.

The Results

A great success, the campaign ran for 153 days reaching millions of gamers who spent an average of 26.3 minutes in front of Marriott Bonvoy’s advertising.

The luxury travel brand’s in-game ads were delivered across 23 different titles (including Tennis Clash, Football Manager 2021, Dirt 5, Rezzil Player 21 and Top Eleven) covering PC, console, VR, cloud gaming and mobile devices.

The campaign was met with positive reviews from players on social media with two official EA Sports Rally Instagram posts relating to the activation in Dirt 5 generating over 1110 likes and interactions. In addition, Marriott Bonvoy’s Tennis Clash string had a powerful set up of abilities, which were greatly appreciated among Tennis Clash’s players as observed by the high number of strings acquired. This campaign was later highly commended in The Drum Awards for Digital Advertising’s Best Use of Gaming category.