Located in the heart of Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani had a business conundrum: in 2019, the storied hotel was slated for redevelopment and new hotel construction. With the pandemic hitting in 2020, the demolition was placed on hold, and the hotel chose to pivot by renovating its Ainahau Tower, comprising half of the resort’s 1100+ rooms. With many anticipating the hotel’s destruction, there were mixed messages in the market regarding the future of the location.
The property sits at the entrance of the Ainahau Estate, once home to Princess Victoria Kaiulani, the last heir apparent to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
The renovated designs were crafted to pay homage to Waikiki’s rich history and Kaiulani’s fashion, celebrating the hotel’s historical grounds and natural landscapes, while breathing new life into the hotel’s original design.
Most hotels do post-renovation marketing campaigns, but few are required to fundamentally shift the narrative pre-completion.
The Ainahau Tower PR & marketing campaign had three goals:
- Increase consumer awareness and build buzz in two phases
- Educate travel partners and media on the shift from widely publicized demolition to renovation
- Increase traffic to the website by 10%, using a limited time offer as incentive
The two campaign phases were:
- Phase 1: Launched in conjunction with International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. Leveraging the hotel’s muse, Princess Kaiulani, the campaign content celebrated the female design powerhouses who were behind the build, along with mood and finish boards, optimizing for awareness.
- Phase 2: Construction completion: “Be the First to Stay in the New Ainahau Tower” was used as the primary messaging, optimizing for clicks.
The target audience spanned both the domestic and international markets with parameters of travelers with a propensity/interest in Hawaii and travel.
- Domestic key feeder markets included the cities of Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix; and states of California, New York, Oregon, Washington (all with direct airlift to Honolulu).
- International key feeder markets included Japan and Korea.
GOAL 1: Consumer awareness & buzz
Results:
- To tell the story behind the renovation, we tapped the 3 local female innovators: Designer Michelle Jaime, Native Hawaiian textile creator Jalene Kanani, & photographer Jenn Ellenburg, for a “Meet the Makers” Series featuring photos and videos (:30-:60 second & 2 min).
- It launched on International Women’s Day and released as a Women’s History Month series across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, and public relations.
- This content marketing was vital when the construction delayed. Without renovated rooms imagery, the Meet the Makers content bridged the gap, building awareness & buzz.
- Organic Social Campaign: The hotel hosted creator “tribes” – small groups of like-minded local content creators stay-cation’ing together.
- Results: 229K Impressions (+200% YOY), +76% Engagements YOY & +123% in video views YOY
- Paid Media Campaign: Included Paid Social Collection Ads, Instant Experience Ads & Programmatic Ads (Static Display & video).
- Paid Social Results: Phase 1 (optimized for awareness) garnered a competitive $1.86 CPC & ~1M impressions. Phase 2 (optimized for clicks) achieved a 6.06% CTR (3x the 2% CTR industry benchmark) at under 1/3 of the benchmark cost. This metric showcases the effectiveness of a phased approach to campaign messaging. The high CTR in Phase 2 indicates that the collection & instant experience ad units effectively draw users to take action.
- Programmatic Results: 4M impressions, $4.6K clicks, $2.63 CPC, $0.11 CTR. The 300x50 Display banners drove the highest CTR (0.16%) & the :15s video creative drove a Video Completion Rate (VCR) of 84.7.
GOAL 2: Educate partners & media
Results:
- PR placements: 156 clips / 28.6M impressions
- Notable placements include: Yahoo! Finance, Hospitality Net, Travel Weekly, Meetings & Conventions, Meetings Today
GOAL 3: Increase website traffic 10%
Results:
- Visits +15.7% YOY
- The content was translated into Japanese & Korean, and distributed abroad
Budget vs Cost
- Video production budget $10K and actual cost was $9.7K (3% under budget)
- Paid social budget was $3.6K (flat to budget).
- Programmatic display budget phase 1: $15K (flat to budget)
Overall, we saw an increase in incremental room nights booked, as well as an increase in the average daily rate YTD. Website visits increased, as well as overall gross room night bookings (YOY).
