City Lodge Hotels is one of South Africa's largest hotel chains, with a specific focus on the business travel market. It is a hotly contested space, where brands offer very similar facilities and services - it's become really hard to stand out. So we knew that, to build loyalty for City Lodge Hotels among stressed-out business travellers, we would really need to innovate. We realised that while every other hotel offers wake-up calls, no one puts their guests to sleep properly. That gave us an opportunity: Based on guest profile data, we identified eight different kinds of business traveller and wrote a relaxing bedtime story for each of them. These misguided meditations were hosted on a microsite and promoted via in-room collateral and via a targeted campaign on social channels. In the end, we put our guests to sleep & gave the hotel industry the wake-up call it needed.

Bedtime Stories for Business People is a playful playlist of misguided meditations, inspired by the world of relaxation, meditation and calmness. We identified eight kinds of business traveller and wrote a unique bedtime story for each of them - Boss, HR Manager, Intern, IT Technician, Sales Rep, Middle Manager, Conference Speaker and of course the idiot from Procurement. Each meditation featured a hand-crafted illustration which blended mundane corporate cues with the aesthetic associated with meditation, mindfulness, tarot cards and the like. These illustrations were animated in soothing, rhythmic loops to ease busy travellers into a state of calm and relaxation. The full stories were hosted on a microsite (bedtimestories.co.za) that our in-room hotel guests could access via QR Code, and we used shorter versions of the audio to amplify the campaign across social media channels, especially LinkedIn.

After recording our eight meditations and creating a bonus white collar noise track, we painstakingly crafted a microsite which combined the sleek, familiar user experience of modern audio applications with a tongue-in-cheek take on the aesthetic so commonly seen in the wellness space. The whimsical, tarot-inspired designs seem serious at first glance, but upon closer inspection reveal hidden in-jokes and winks to the busy life of the business traveller. We wanted to create an entertaining, visceral experience for our in-room guests, so we printed elegant bookmarks which featured a QR code to drive tired travellers to the microsite, as well as sleep masks for those who wished to rest their weary eyes. We also targeted business people on LinkedIn, pushing them tailored messaging that, just like the meditations themselves, offered a moment of Zen with a side of humour.

At last count, the campaign had generated 28,131,044 Total Impressions, with a Total Reach of 14,838,215. Total Engagement was 472,593 and Total Click-throughs equalled 171,684. In terms of ROI, for every R1 spent we earned a return of R257 (Ratio = 257.31 : 1)