Hotels.com #HotelLife Launch: Influencer Campaign

Influencer travel content is oversaturated and largely unoriginal and so with OTA Hotels.com, our job was to activate an influencer-lead and Insta-worthy travel campaign without using a travel influencer for the launch of their new platform #HotelLife. Pets have long marked their rightful place in the influencer world and this genre of creator represented an untapped opportunity for something completely original in a travel campaign. Our search took us through cats, dogs and people with pets, but it was unanimously decided that Dolly Pawton encapsulated the Hotels.com tone of voice. The diva chihuahua with sass for days and a wardrobe bigger than any of the Jenners’, Dolly Pawton made up for her size with her badass attitude. Only one city could match up to her personality - New York City. With its exhilarating and thrilling assault on the senses, Dolly’s take on the Big Apple in the weeks before Christmas was the perfect fit. During the planning stage of her trip, Dolly took full advantage of her highly engaged audience, asking them for tips on where to go and what to see, and recommendations on how to make the most of their time away. Using Instagram Story polls, questions, sliders and countdowns it democratized the content, offering us a chance to engage audiences right from the start of the campaign, give them a sense of ownership of the content and to share immediate feedback on what they wanted to see. In New York City, Dolly Pawton captured the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn from just a few inches off the ground right up to the Top Of The Rock, taking her audiences where very few British dogs have ever been before. Painting the city’s skyline through the eyes of a chihuahua, Dolly got her audience up close and personal onto the steps of Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment, inside Joe’s Pizzeria, around the magical pathways of Central Park and over the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. The results of the campaign proved its success with her average in-feed campaign engagement rate of 28.7% exceeding her channel average (4.21%) by more than 581%. Along with Hotels.com #AccidentallyTokyo, this campaign has also been nominated for Best Travel Campaign at the Influencer Marketing Awards 2020.