To reach the majority of the target with as much frequency as possible during the promotional time period, and the identified "Marriott Moment", in order to build awareness of both the Come Out & Play promotion, and Marriott's portfolio of brands. Therefore, we set a communication goal of 50% Reach at the 5+ Frequency level for the portfolio of brands, and an individual brand goal of 75% Reach at the 3+ Frequency level. Thus leveraging the unique characteristics of each property to drive overall Marriott awareness, while at the same time sufficiently supporting each individual brand. As stated above, the conceptual target for the effort was "Wishful Weekenders", those people who look forward to the weekend but get caught up in chores and errands and forget that they can get out and do something else. To that end, Marriott created a "come out and play" weekend rate promotion to entice "Wishful Weekenders" not to waste another weekend at home. The creative tagline "Your Marriott Awaits" further reinforced this idea, as did commercials featuring celebrities in surprise "look what you're missing" situations.The Universal McCann media team took this premise even further, directly translating the lost weekend into a found media opportunity. Utilizing UM's proprietary tool Media in Mind, the planning group uncovered the fact that the Wishful Weekender's mood begins to decline Saturday evening and continues its descent through the weekend before rising on Tuesday. At the same time their media attention rises and falls in the opposite manner, increasing Saturday evening before a Tuesday decline. This time period was the window of opportunity..."The Marriott Moment". This was the moment of lowest mood (they are literally down about the end of the weekend and the prospect of beginning a new workweek) and the moment of highest attention to media (looking to get lost in entertainment, curl up on the couch). What better time to place a "look what you've missed, come out and play" message, tagged with "Your Marriott Awaits". This insight lead us to schedule all media activity during "The Marriott Moment" window, Saturday evening through Tuesday.

Further emphasizing the lost weekend, informal research showed that a great number of people associate the official end of the weekend with the 60 Minutes clock ticking on CBS Sunday night (a program also highly ranked in delivery of Marriott's target). This program fell at peak time (low/high) for both mood and attention levels. To capitalize on this insight, Universal McCann negotiated commercial placement in 60 Minutes' opening pod, directly after the clock lead-out, throughout the length of the campaign.Although the events of September 11th lessened the effort's potential (the scheduled launch was 9/8) it was still considered successful. Marriott implemented the plan in late October and even in a devastated, reluctant travel environment, showed a 9 to 1 return on their investment. Additionally the effort generated over 200,000 calls to Marriott reservation centers, far exceeding expectations in a wary travel environment.

Overall, in support of the Leisure Weekend push, Universal McCann created a communication platform that synergistically tied message content to a relevant media opportunity/consumption period, and achieved its goal of reaching, and calling to action the majority of Wishful Weekenders. As 2001 approached Marriott Hotels' primary challenge was to establish all of their brands as the "Go To" destination for all travel segments. As the year rolled on, and the economy slowed, the challenge became more daunting. Faced with an aggressive goal in a fading economy, Marriott decided to focus their efforts on the Leisure Travel segment, specifically, weekend room nights.- This area traditionally has lower occupancy rates than weekdays given Marriott status as a business traveler destination.- Additionally, Marriott wanted to capitalize on the increasing trend in the weakened economy for shorter weekend based vacations.Having just won the account, the natural first advertising task for Universal McCann was to increase Weekend Occupancy. After the events of September 11th, this segment became even more important, given the lack of domestic Business Travel.Universal McCann approached this challenge through an innovative strategy plan based on reaching Marriott's target through well-placed media during a key window of opportunity that we dubbed "The Marriott Moment". Working closely with Strategic Planning and the Creative team, Universal McCann's media group initiated and fed the resulting creative idea. The Come Out & Play campaign is both special and unique in the way it used traditional media in an untraditional manner. Its conceptual target is the "Wishful Weekender", the person that looks forward to the weekend but often gets caught up in weekend chores and forgets that they can actually do something else. We wanted to grab these people in the throes of their weekend blues, when another weekend is on its way to passing them by, having been spent at home, while they were wishing they had been spontaneous and gone somewhere new. This strategy wasn't simply the well worn idea of advertising a promotional rate in appropriate programming; the uniqueness came in our driving consumers' response through a plan that capitalized on a specific time period where the targets' mood and attention levels were aligned in a manner that made them ripe for the idea of a small life change, a much needed weekend getaway. This concept, combined with the appropriate programming, created an irresistible proposition for the target, and resulted in an exceedingly successful campaign.

As 2001 approached Marriott Hotels' primary challenge was to establish all of their brands as the "Go To" destination for all travel segments. As the year rolled on, and the economy slowed, the challenge became more daunting. Faced with an aggressive goal in a fading economy, Marriott decided to focus their efforts on the Leisure Travel segment, specifically, weekend room nights.- This area traditionally has lower occupancy rates than weekdays given Marriott status as a business traveler destination.- Additionally, Marriott wanted to capitalize on the increasing trend in the weakened economy for shorter weekend based vacations.Having just won the account, the natural first advertising task for Universal McCann was to increase Weekend Occupancy. After the events of September 11th, this segment became even more important, given the lack of domestic Business Travel.Universal McCann approached this challenge through an innovative strategy plan based on reaching Marriott's target through well-placed media during a key window of opportunity that we dubbed "The Marriott Moment". Working closely with Strategic Planning and the Creative team, Universal McCann's media group initiated and fed the resulting creative idea.