How can a hotel brand position itself amidst the worst pandemic in decades?

Hotel occupancy rates had dropped drastically during the pandemic, but in the summer of 2021, Hilton saw numbers rise to 50% occupancy in Saudi Arabia and UAE – largely led by staycations and families who wanted to reconnect in a safe space.

So with this activation, Hilton aspired to tap into an important human truth that everyone was feeling as a major consequence of the pandemic: the effects of social distancing and the desire to reconnect with loved ones.

Therefore, Hilton aimed to tell an authentic story – one that could be unique to Hilton’s properties – while connecting at an emotional level to leave a mark on people’s hearts and minds.

Objectives:

● Create meaningful emotional engagement

● Show how Hilton’s properties can help families reconnect safely during a pandemic

Google has over 1,000,000 articles about “Family + Reconnection + Pandemic”.

The whole world has suffered over the past two years; it’s been incredibly hard emotionally to stay away from the people we love.

In Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, family is the pillar and, in every study, it consistently scores as what is most important in one’s life.

During the pandemic period, families were torn apart. School-aged children could be a risk for relatives, especially grandparents, and so people stayed away and safe.

But by summer, most people in the region had been vaccinated, and some had already received 3 shots, so it was time for families to reconnect.

Connecting rooms would be the perfect space to support those powerful moments of reconnection.

We wanted to tap into the deep (almost painful) joy that is reconnecting with someone you love: introducing the Live Surprise Stunt with Azza.

In Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, family is the pillar and, in every study, it consistently scores as what is most important in one’s life.

Here, connecting rooms are an important requirement for both Saudi and Emirati families who enjoy the intimacy of having their families truly together when they travel. At other hotels, they’re only confirmed when you arrive at the hotel. Not at Hilton – where connecting rooms are confirmed at the time of the booking.

During a pandemic, something as simple as “Confirmed Connecting Rooms” can actually become a much more important part of the experience as it allows families to be together in a safe bubble.

Instead of doing a traditional ad campaign, Hilton leveraged the power of storytelling with an influencer to talk about a topic as mundane as “connecting rooms”.

The comms strategy was to bring true emotions with an influencer.

To do so, Hilton partnered with an influencer Azza Zarour, an actress, singer, and content creator with 3.5 million followers.

As a true influencer with substance, and able to speak with heart and soul, Azza and Hilton were the perfect match.

We flew Azza’s family from abroad and surprised her with them in one of Hilton’s connecting rooms. And the magic happened.

On April 21st 2021, we invited her to the Waldorf Astoria Palm Jumeirah, to unveil our new ultra-luxurious suite with connecting rooms.

While Azza was doing her live show and exploring the room with her followers, we opened the connecting door…and she saw her family for the first time in many months.

Live streaming got extended for an hour instead of a 5-minute reveal.

Because we never forget the times we’re together, Hilton wanted to share a new memory lived and experienced by a top influencer.

The biggest outcome of this campaign?

A lot of crying. Azza cried. Her family cried. Her followers cried. The cameraman cried.

It was a deeply emotional moment watched live by many of Azza’s followers.

A fun fact is that the most used emoji in the live comments changed during the session. While Azza was exploring the hotel room, it was 😍, the “heart eyes emoji”. And when she opened the connecting room and her family came in… you guessed it, it was 😭, the “loudly crying face emoji”.

As you are reading this, we know that we are blessed in this region to have already had the opportunity to reconnect with our loved ones. If you haven’t been able to yet, we hope that you’ll be able to experience this joy and that it will be so intense that you will all 😭 bawl your eyes out.

With Love, Hilton.