Music has a rich legacy, with roots in cities all over the world. These are the specific places that inspired some of our most cherished songs, from “New York State of Mind” to “London Calling”. Music is woven into street corners and music halls, hotel rooms and nightclubs. It’s a celebration of the places where music actually happened. Its legacy is sometimes right beneath our feet and we don’t even know it.

Hilton has a storied music history; from hosting the first ever GRAMMY awards at the Beverly Hilton in LA, to John Lennon writing his lyrics to “Imagine” on Hilton NYC stationary. We wanted to tell these music stories of past and present in 7 destination music cities, and bring the stories to life through music, content and experiences for Hilton Honors members.

We hired an in-house research team to uncover musical history within our 7 music cities, and looked for endemic music tie-ins with Hilton – Forming narratives, interviewing artists and music legends, from contacting estates, to seeking out photographers of famous album covers; all to find the most authentic stories.

We took present day artists and had them reimagine their favorite songs from these music cities, putting a new spin on classics to enhance the stories.

Launching during GRAMMY week, we spanned the series over one year. Launching a new song every few months that coincided with the content series and live concerts in Los Angeles, London, New Orleans, Seattle, Chicago, Nashville and New York City. We released interactive maps, audio tours and integrated Spotify playlists to enhance all of the songs and content.

Using 360 degree channels, we pushed out playlists and content across all brands, artists and partners.

Through the use of owned social channels and the promotion of content on artist and partner social channels we totaled over 48M impressions and 710K engagements and over 3.4M video views - a 676% increase from 2015.

We showed a hero piece of program content on Hilton’s in-room channel resulting in 343,354 rooms which received a total play duration of 1,174,818,919,850 times.

Using content on concert venue media, playing 75 venues hitting 17m in attendance in one calendar year we averaged 42.5M impressions on a hero piece of content.

By building more dynamic and intimate music experiences for Honors Members we saw 78M point redemptions – a 68% increase from 2016. Through this program 20M redemptions transitioned from hotel rooms to experiences – saving Hilton lost room revenue.

Through the use of strategic storytelling and pitching media outlets that resonated with our consumers, we reached over 1 billion media/PR impressions.