Amidst a crowded platform, we sought to break through the noise on TikTok, and to drive cultural relevance with a relatable, personal voice. ‘Cheeky Text’ is a platform-specific content franchise, designed to lead with audience sentiment. This approach is unique in the luxury space, innovative and intended to effectively build a stronger emotional connection with our community.
It was essential that we were able to deliver quick-turn content that could capitalize on trends in real-time to preserve a sense of timely conversation. We prioritized engagement metrics—shares and saves—over reach and impressions, knowing these would be the strongest indicators of relevance and resonance. This not only communicates strong content, but an authentic sense of connection with the next generation of travelers.
The "Cheeky Text" franchise leaned heavily on humor to drive engagement, tapping into relatable travel sentiments and playful storytelling to connect with audiences. We prioritized creating content that resonated with TikTok’s lighthearted culture while reflecting the brand’s witty, approachable voice.
The execution followed a structured yet flexible process to ensure timely and relatable content:
Collaborating Cross-Functionally: Our copy, creative, and social teams worked together to identify universal travel sentiments that would resonate with audiences, focusing on themes like paid time off (PTO), travel archetypes, and relatable moments tied to the guest experience.
Trend and Seasonal Monitoring: We closely tracked TikTok trends and seasonal conversations, identifying opportunities to align our content with what users were already talking about, ensuring relevance and timeliness.
Partnering with Hotels: We collaborated with our on-property marketing leaders to capture authentic, on-brand footage for "Cheeky Text." Simple, vignette-style content was shot on iPhone during events and lifestyle shoots, giving us a robust library of assets to pull from for execution.
Personifying the Brand Voice: The franchise repositioned the corporate nature of our brand on TikTok by embracing self-awareness and relatability. We leaned into first-person, “I”, and third-person plural, “we”, points of view frequently, making the brand feel approachable and human while owning our corporate identity in a humorous way.
Building Content Flexibility: Placeholder content was built into our social calendars to allow for adaptability and responsiveness. This flexibility ensured that we could utilize timely content and trends with fresh, relevant "Cheeky Text" videos.
The “Cheeky Text” franchise played a pivotal role in advancing W Hotels' larger brand objectives, driving awareness by 2.8 percentage points (compared to a 2.1 internal benchmark across the Marriott portfolio), and favorability by 6.3 percentage points (compared to a 0.9 benchmark across the Marriott portfolio).
As a result, W Hotels became Marriott's top-performing luxury brand on TikTok, boasting an average engagement rate of 14.61% on the platform and positioning the brand as the top-performing luxury hotel across the Marriott portfolio. Through sentiment-driven content that blended humor and relatability, the franchise consistently outperformed other content types while fostering deeper audience relationships.
The content generated over 25 million impressions at a CPM of $4.08—6.4% lower than the brand’s average—and amassed 5 million total engagements with a 21% average engagement rate, 50% higher than W Hotels' baseline. Key engagement metrics included 32k+ shares and saves, crucial indicators of relevance and resonance. Audience comments like "I can relate," "Airbnb could never," and "This whole video screamed 'FOR YOU'" reflected the franchise’s ability to connect meaningfully with viewers.
The top-performing videos leaned into holiday and corporate travel sentiments, allowing the franchise to adapt to opportune, relatable moments. By prioritizing engagement metrics over reach and impressions, Cheeky Text not only amplified brand awareness but also showcased W Hotels' signature bold tone. This reinforced W Hotel's brand identity as a cultural leader, securing its spot as the leading luxury hotel performer on the platform.
