Hilton Campaign: Project Management

This article discusses the Hilton Hotel Campaign and its impact, as well as the reporting framework used. It explores the timeline, channels, and metrics of the campaign. The SOSTAC framework is also discussed, along with an evaluation of the campaign's success. Finally, suggestions are provided for improving customer engagement and future campaigns.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
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Introduction
The Hilton Hotel Campaign that was held in 2018 had a great impact to Hilton. A reporting framework
will be used for the Hilton’s Campaign. The framework will include 7 steps. They include: definition of
the requirement, understanding the channels that were used in the marketing, defining the metric,
analyze the data from the marketing campaign, from the analyzed data make some automated services
to solve issues that may arise, integrate all the reports and automation of all the reports by use of a
dashboard. Once the reporting framework is implemented, Hilton management panel will be in a
position to understand the marketing mix, the marketing channel, integrate all the report and have an
automated process (Huckestein & Duboff, 2013).
Discussion
Overview of the Campaign
Hilton held a Campaign that was launched in September 2018. The campaign theme was “Expect
Better, Expect Hilton”. The brand campaign spokesperson was Anna Kendrick, who is a celebrity
talent. The Campaign was aired on the United States Television in the period of the Ryder Cup on
NBC. The benefits of the Hotel were emphasized during the campaign. There were also discounts
granted to people booking hotels directly with Hilton (Sweeney, 2018b). Other benefits included;
Enjoying when they stay at the Hilton Hotel, price-match guarantee (Hearn, 2019). The campaign was
to use different channels. The campaign channels included: YouTube, Tv, Facebook, Instagram and the
radio. The main reason for the campaign was to educate people on the benefits of being a Hilton
Honors loyalty member. Using the third-party distribution channels such as Booking,com and Expedia
was the only way of reserving a service in Hilton Hotel.
A celebrity was chosen to reach the younger consumers. Anna Kendrick got positive views from the
younger generation aged within the age bracket of 18-34 years. Research was done and did show that
Anna Kendrick a positive view from 75 percent of her fans in America. Using the Anna Kendrick as
the brand ambassador for the campaign ‘Expect Better, Expect Hilton’, would enable the campaign
reach more young people (Sweeney, 2018a) . Some people tend to follow the celebrities daily life
activities using the social media platforms. There was a trend in the campaign in the #ExpectBetter.
Timeline of the campaign with the distribution channels
Below is the timeline of the campaign.

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The campaign involved the POEm. This is the paid media, owned media, earned media.

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The paid media include the TV shows and the radio shows. Anna Kendrick was used in the TV show
Campaign. The report shows that there a number of keywords that users that were used to find the TV
spots online. They include words like: ‘Girl in the Hilton commercial’, ‘Anna Kendrick commercial’,
‘Hilton ad’ and many more keywords. Hilton had to pay TV hosts for advertising their hotel in the TV
an the radios ("Paid, owned, earned: maximizing marketing returns in a socially connected world",
2012).
The owned media include the Hilton's’ website and the social media accounts owned by Hilton. The
website was used to advertise the campaign. Search Engine Optimization is enhanced in Hilton’s Hotel
website. Also a website conversion rate was used to calculate the website visitors. The tool was used to
distinguish the people that had reached the website directly, and those that reached the website using
third-party applications such as Booking.com. Digital marketing was enhanced to increase the traffic
flow (Seufert, 2019).
The social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter were used in mostly in this
Campaign . Both the Hilton's accounts and Anna Kendrick accounts were used in this campaign. The
Facebook statistics as at 8th March 2019, revealed a total of 47,153 views, 514 shares, 227 comments
and 705 likes. This involved the accounts that belong to the Hilton. The twitter statistics as at 8th March
2019, reveals a total of 15 tweets by Hilton, 4 other tweets, 17 comments, 185 retweet and 29 likes.
The Instagram statistics as at 8th March 2019, had 992885 views. All the posted data had a hashtag
message of ‘#ExpectBetter’. The views on YouTube reached to 580,000 views at a 18th March 2019.
The Earned media which involved a word of mouth to campaign for Hilton also added an impact in the
creating awareness of the campaign. Anna Kendrick posted it in a her social media account, This
increased the traffic of visitors to Hilton's website (Lovett & Staelin, 2016).
SOSTAC framework
The SOSTAC framework involves the situation analysis, objectives, tactics, actions and the control
(Cowley, 2016). SOSTAC strategy was very useful. This is because it involves a well analyzed plan on
how to handle the campaign (Reed FIDM, 2014). And eventually when successful it should be
monitored and data will be analyzed and reports will be presented.

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1. SOSTAC framework
1. Situation Analysis The situation analysis of the campaign was that
Hilton aimed at reaching the young people within
the age of 18-34 years. The Hilton marketing
managers had to analyze the strengths that they
have in sales department, profits and customers.
Hilton sales team can reach a wide range of
customers globally through marketing campaign.
Thus will make more profit by having many
customers. They also had to identify the weakness
that they had in their marketing tactics. The sales
team have not been fully utilizing the digital
marketing. Some big competitors are upcoming are
are grabbing more customers. This is reducing the
number customers. This eventually lead to low
sales . The team had also to identify the
opportunities that were present in the market. The
opportunities they identified was using a celebrity
artist in their campaign. The artist has influence to
many people. Therefore, she was an asset in the
campaign. The marketing team had to identify the
threats in the market such as competing hotels in
the market.
2. Objectives Identification of the objectives of the campaign
was necessary, The specific objective of the
campaign was to create awareness of the Hilton
Hotel benefits to the youth within the age 18-34
years. Hilton needed to accomplish the task by

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2018 November. More youth would book for
Hilton’s services thus more sales and profit in the
company. The objective made, were also
measurable. A lot of investment was made on the
campaign, expecting ROI. The higher the amount
spent on marketing, more sales are made and the
greater the profit. The campaign aimed in being
realistic. They used a celebrity, who is also an
influencer of most youth. More customers were
influenced to Hilton services. This led to an
increase in sales and profit. The Campaign was
targeting the youth within the age group of 18-34
years old as they would share the message with the
fellow friends. This would increase the sales
resulting to an increase in profits.
3. Strategy A marketing strategy had to be planned for a
successful campaign. Paid media, owned media
and earned media was used in the campaign. With
the help of a celebrity artist who is capable of
influencing many youth , would lead to a
successful campaign.
4. Tactics This step was to identifies a process that would
lead successful plan. Anna Kendrick was used in
the campaign, as she has 75 percent positive views
from her fans. Most of her fans were the young
people. Using her in the campaign would create
awareness to her fans. Then her fan would share
her post based on the Hilton's promotion. A lot of
investment was made on the campaign for

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‘ExpectBetter,Expect Hilton’. This would result to
a traffic visiting Hilton's website for more
information about the benefits of being a royal
member. Reports of the marketing campaign had
to be displayed for physical evidence.
5. Action Anna Kendrick is the centre of interest in the
entire campaign. There were four action Ann made
in marketing Hilton. The for commercial she did
include: ‘Poolside’ featuring Anna
Kendrick,’Acting’ featuring Anna Kendrick,
‘Picking Stuff’ featuring Anna Kendrick and ‘The
Catch’ featuring Anna Kendrick. The Hilton
commercials were aired in USA. The commercials
were also uploaded on the social media accounts.
Alot of invested was made on this campaign but
the budget was confidential.
6. Control The final step in Controlling the campaign. After
posting the ads on the social media account and
also airing the Hilton commercials on TV, there
was need to monitor the behavior of the targeted
audience. On call social media accounts and the
TV airings data was analyzed based on the likes,
shares, views, retweets and tweets. Graphical
reports were generated from the data collected.

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Product/ service Customers are encouraged to be Hilton Honors
loyalty member and enjoy benefits of services in
Hilton.
Prices There will be discounts offered to the customers
who make direct reservations.
Place/ access There are a number of resorts and restaurants in
different parts of the world. Any customer can
make booking via the Hilton's website.
Promotion The communication mix would involve digital
marketing and great public relation with the target
market.
Physical evidence
In the website, there will be testimonial of happy
clients. Also in the website blog, customers will be
allowed to respond in blog posts. The positive
feedback from current customers will reassure the
potential Hilton's customers.
Processes
Hilton will have a Customer Relationship
Management System, where all issues will be
addressed.
People The employees include:attendant, chefs, IT
consultants.Most of the employees especially the
attendants require the hospitality skills in the
Company. The chefs should know how to cook
good food. The IT consultants should be conversant
with technology.
Evaluate the marketing Campaign
The ‘Expect Better, Expect Hilton ’ featured by Anna Kendrick brought in a major impact to Hilton

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Hotel. The metric categories includes: Return on investment, response rate, customer retention, brand
awareness and customer engagement.
First the every business has to observe the return on investment on the marketing campaign. A lot of
money was invested in the Hilton Campaign. The hotel expected a huge profit to arise of the
campaign. More customers were reached during the campaign. This would result to more sales hence
more profit to the hotel. The response rate is also another metric that was considered. The campaign,
through the social media account attracted more customers (Puorto, 2018). . The potential customer
wanted to know more about Hilton. The customer went to the website directly to get more information.
They also ask more questions from the support team. Depending on the high response rate to the
customers question, the number of customers booking for services increased. Customer retention is
also another metric. The campaign was encouraging the customers to register as a Hilton Honors
loyalty member. This members were to enjoy some benefits from the hotel (Bansal & Bansal, 2018)..
This would help in retaining more customers. This in turn will lead to more sales resulting to more
profit. Brand awareness is another metric, that was successful by using a celebrity to create the
awareness of Hilton Hotel to the people within the age 18-34 years. More people were aware of Hilton
Hotel through: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TV shows. As from October 2018 to November
2018, the number of the customer ranging within the age bracket of 18-34 years have increased from 10
percent to 14 percent. The final metric is the customer engagement. After the awareness of the
campaign, some of the customer in social media accounts shared the post about Hilton's a campaign
(V, 2015). For example in Facebook, the customer engaged in the campaign by sharing the Facebook
posts. There were 514 shares, 705 likes and 227 comments on Facebook Hilton campaign. The
comments had to be responded by the Hilton's team this brought in communication between the
Hilton's team and the customer. This communication could help bring in new customers, hence
increasing the sales.
Suggestion
Based on the Report framework, I would suggest , Hilton to add Google Analytic tool on their website.
This will help in viewing the behavior of the visitors who visit the website. Hilton will be in a position
to tell the level of customer engagement after the Brand awareness. There will be automation of
reports such as viewing bounce rates, the real time numbers visitors in the site, the landing pages and

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the source. The management team will be in a position to show which campaign marketing channel is
more effective.
The other metric to improve on is the customer management. To increase the number of engagement by
the customers, I would suggest the company to focus on an influencer instead of celebrity
endorsements. An influencer is not necessarily a celebrity, but some celebrities such as Anna Kendrick
are influencers. By campaigning using influencer is preferable and the impact will be greater
comparing to an celebrity. Usually, fans will feel closer to the influencer, thus accept the endorsement.
Influencers who are the spokespeople in a campaign , are the best in well working marketing strategy.
The influence customer will make more customer engagements with Hilton’s campaign.
On campaign suggestion, Hilton should look back at the campaigns that were successful. The team
should use a similar strategy with slight changes, to perform another campaign to market its services.
Secondly, all activities should in the campaigns be tracked . Upon monitoring all the actions that will
be taken, the reports will be generated. Some activities may be successful, while others will be
unsuccessful. From this metrics, the company will develop a better way to get more things to succeed.
Conclusion
The campaign by Anna Kendrick for a successful plan that was implemented the right way. There was
a positive result from the campaign. Hilton reached the young people and some are making booking in
Hilton Hotel.The plan was a properly done and the implementation was done using SOSTAC approach.
Anna Kendrick has influenced most to the young people, to have an interest in the Hilton Hotel
services (Ting, 2018). The company had invested a lot in the campaign, but with the positive trend in
marketing, the company will get more profit.

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