Objectives

The overall objectives of the Marriott Content Studio that led to its second year of short film initiatives were: 1) continuing the creation of compelling storytelling content across all platforms—film, television and digital—designed to engage, entertain and motivate the traveling audience; 2) firmly establish MCS' digital and filmed entertainment storytelling model—this is essentially the reason that Marriott Content Studio exists and in this particular case—that it has legs; TWO BELLMEN TWO is the second film in the TWO BELLMEN franchise; 3) to incubate the talent of established and up and coming storytellers in the studio mentorship model, just as a movie studio would do; 4) to showcase the incredible Marriott properties that are the loci in quo of MCS films; and 5) finally, to do what Marriott Content Studio head David Beebe calls "3 c's": "Scaling content, then building a community around that content, and driving commerce."

Strategy and Execution

• We treated TWO BELLMEN TWO both as an anthology—chapter two in the ongoing TWO BELLMEN saga—and as an independently produced short film shot on location at the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai as outstanding stand-alone content. As Executive Producer David Beebe said when he launched MCS: "Marketing as interruption is over, and [our films] propel our strategy of providing entertaining and informative content that adds value and helps build a community of people passionate about travel who ultimately drive commerce for Marriott's global brands.
• Marriott Content Studio acts in some cases like a movie producer, choosing to partner with content creators instead of doing everything in-house. In this case (as with TWO BELLMEN "ONE") the partner was Substance Over Hype. Substance Over Hype® (SOH) is a "movement" that aims to inspire, combining movement and music to tell stories, create unrivaled media, and perform live. SOH content centers around popular themes of dance, parkour, extreme sports, martial arts, and music—and they do it ALL expertly. There are few other production partners that can deliver the talent, production value, stunts, movement and top it all off with an energetic soundtrack album. SOH productions contain the world's top names from each movement category—referred to as "Kings & Queens"—who collectively boast over 30 million hits on their current YouTube videos.
• Then Substance over Hype delivered: TWO BELLMEN TWO follows a friendly but competitive relationship between two exceptional bellmen Christian Caine Sinclair (NBC's Grimm; How I met Your Mother) and Gage William Spencer (SPIDER-MAN; SPIDER-MAN 2) as The Bellmen. Since catching the Purple Panthers, they've enjoyed a life of luxury on the Arabian Gulf at the world's tallest hotel—the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai. When Laila Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire; Rise of the Planet of the Apes) loses a valuable flash drive essential to her business presentation, Christian and Gage go to amazing lengths across the desert to retrieve it, despite the best efforts of the "biobots" inadvertently programmed to thwart them. Will they make it back in time to save the day? The hotel (via the bellmen and the JW Marriott's signature service culture) emerges as the hero. The film is a comedic, genre-bending explosion of parkour, martial arts, dance and music action and features cameos from Colin Cowie and Josue "Beastmode" Figueroa.
• For the finished film, it subtly yet convincingly extends the value of the brand, and is an audience-satisfying installment in the Marriott Two Bellmen "franchise," just like a movie studio franchise. The first film was a proof of concept that blazed a trail to prominence. The second built on the success of the first, expanding upon its pre-engaged audience. "Content marketing is a lot like dating," Beebe says. "You don't get a second date unless you provide value during the first." Combining press, social media and word of mouth, the production team built public excitement over the film from trailer through release, and launched with a premiere in Dubai and Downtown LA (at the JW Marriott L.A. Live there).

Results

• Overall, the release of TWO BELLMEN TWO was very successful across traditional and social media.
  
  • The film has garnered 7.93 million views on YouTube; the trailer got almost a million.
  • It was distributed across ten channels: Marriott Traveler; Twobellmen.com; two bellmen social; Two Bellmen YouTube; Marriott.com; Emirates Airlines; JW Marriott Social; MarriottRewards.com; and JWMarriott.com.
• • Marriott-owned channels delivered 16.2 million impressions.
  • The combined films TWO BELLMEN and TWO BELLMEN TWO delivered an estimated 26 million social media impressions; 5.34 million from Facebook
  • PR on TWO BELLMEN TWO delivered an estimated 146 million impressions and an estimated $1.6 million ad value.
• These are the quantitative analyses. Qualitatively, the film continues to advance the Marriott Content Studio's goals by establishing a track record of Marriott's producing and distributing movies.
• TWO BELLMEN TWO was screened at eight film festivals and won several awards:
  • LA Movie Awards – Best Editing
  • LA Movie Awards – Honorable Mention
• • Los Angeles CineFest – Semi-finalist
  • Malibu Film Festival – Best Action Film
  • Roma Cinema Doc – Best International Short
• The impact on associates (Marriott employees) and existing and prospective guests—millennials and JW Marriott's core guests saw the highest lifts in favorability and consideration from the film—was significant and positive. "That's really what our goal is," Beebe concluded. "To take all the brand marketers, all the brand leaders and teams, and turn them into great storytellers."

Media