ShareHSMAI Marketing Advisory Board members Florence Quinn, founder of Quinn PR, and Casey Ueberroth, chief marketing officer of Preferred Hotels & Resorts (the world’s largest independent hotel brand) recently chatted about Preferred’s shift to video and why.
Florence Quinn: Why do you believe video is important to your business?
Casey Ueberroth: We have seen the shift from verbose text to text reduced to bullets to picture-heavy content to video images. We are moving in the direction of video because imagery tells the story faster and with more clarity and vividness. After all, people are visual beings.
Now that mobile devices accommodate video so well, it is a good time to make the shift. Just as we moved from radio to TV, it is inevitable that we will continue moving to mobile devices.
Video is a price-value premium compared to print. You can produce 10-15 serial videos for the price of two pages of advertising in a major travel publication, which comes to about $120,000. And the videos stay online. We have shifted 20-25% of our marketing budget away from print.
Quinn: How do you envision video and its usage to evolve as a marketing medium in the next few years?
Ueberroth: We are testing a variety of video usages, including on the home pages and via email. We figure we have 25 seconds to engage. We are also using video to show individual properties and tell their stories – a chef talking about where he gets his food, a concierge’s top things to do on property, for example. In doing so we are describing an independent hotel – something that is hard to do with just word. A video gives character to a property; it brings the hotel and its people to life.
Since we want our videos to look professional, which can get very expensive, our agency is creating templates with introductions and music to enhance a hotel’s iphone or GoPro video. The agency still edits the hotel’s video. The final product is on-brand and still has the look and feel of organic content.
While the length of a video can vary depending on usage, we generally aim for 30 seconds or less. We wouldn’t go over one minute.
Quinn: What KPI (Key Performance Indicators) do you use to judge the success of video?
Ueberroth: We look where people enter and exit the site. Are they entering or exiting on the video? We look at video views and shares as well.
Hotels that have created videos are popular on YouTube, which also helps with SEO. One goal is to get higher organic growth on YouTube, a good platform for us.
About HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board
HSMAI’s Marketing Advisory Board leverages insights, emerging trends, and industry innovations to inspire marketing for hotels. Members include:
- Michael Bennett, Vice President, Marketing, White Lodging Services
- Katie Briscoe, EVP, Client Services, MMGY Global
- Diane Briskin, Managing Director, DKC Public Relations
- Maureen Callahan, Vice President of Marketing Communication & Public Relations, Destination Hotels
- Matthew Clyde, President & Chief Strategist, Ideas Collide
- Sean Dee, CMO & EVP, Outrigger Resorts
- Agnelo Fernandes, Senior VP of Sales & Marketing, Terranea Resort / Destination Hotels and Resorts
- Brian Hall, Chief Marketing Officer, St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission
- Teri Merritt, Vice President Brand Marketing & eCommerce – Americas, Marriott International
- Natalie Osborn, Senior Industry Consultant, Hospitality and Travel Global Practice, SAS Institute, Inc.
- Mandy Penn, Senior Director of Resort Marketing, Universal Orlando Resort
- Florence Quinn, President, Quinn
- Lisa Ross, President, rbb Public Relations
- Andrew Rubinacci, CHSP, SVP, Distribution & Revenue Management Strategy, IHG
- Bill Rubino, Partner, President, Panzano & Partners
- Todd Sommers, Director, Brand Marketing & Content Strategy, Best Western Hotels & Resorts
- Casey Ueberroth, Chief Marketing Officer, Preferred Hotels & Resorts