Marriott turns on the tango

SYDNEY – When a major international luxury hotel group advertises its properties and services you normally expect to see images of beautiful guests rooms, chirpy check-in staff and fine dining restaurants.

Not so with the new advertising campaign from Marriott International which uses international dance forms as a metaphor to express its global reach “and the synchronicity of its staff”.

Marriott has launched the multi-media advertising campaign to support its global, nearly 500-hotel-strong upscale, deluxe Marriott brand.

“We wanted to create a motivating and highly relevant campaign that stands out clearly against the more traditional product-led approach to business advertising,” said Belinda Pote, senior vice president of international brand marketing.

“We chose ‘dance’ as the vehicle because of its inherent synchronicity, visual appeal and the fact that every country has its own cultural variations.

“The campaign speaks to our achievement-driven business travellers across the globe in a language that allows us to portray the diversity of our Marriott hotel offering and demonstrate how our hotels work in perfect harmony to support the needs of these travellers.”

The progressive campaign includes commercials on media outlets such as CNN en Espanol, Bloomberg, Al Jezeerah, France 24, Discovery and in-flight television channels aboard airlines including Air China, Lufthansa, LAN, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Japan Air Lines.

Additionally, the campaign includes on-line advertising, traditional print placements in publications like the Economist and outdoor and airline terminal media.

“Through this campaign, our goal is to build a rational and emotional tie with the global business travellers. We are talking to them in places where they most likely to be − in hotel rooms, on airplanes, in airports.

“And, through this performance metaphor, we are saying that although business styles differ from country to country, you should enjoy the same effortless experience wherever you are,” said Ms. Pote.

For a look behind the scenes on the making of these high-energy commercials, click/paste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4yhEI3-G4A
or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTlR_69hy-w to view a 60-second version of the television commercial.

Costs of the campaign and media buy were not disclosed.