citizenM: A Bold, Unique Brand Bringing Personality and Versatility to the Hospitality Industry
Earlier this year we obtained business with a company called citizenM. They are a hotel chain based out of the Netherlands. Its first hotel was opened in Amsterdam in 2008. They have since expanded globally with several in the United States. The company is unique in terms of its style, brand, and POV. The hotels are extremely beautiful both inside and out. They take great pride in the appearance of each location from the facade down to how the towels are folded in all the bathrooms.
The people who work at each location are unique as well. When they open a new location they hold what they call auditions. At citizenM you are more likely to be hired if you possess a big personality and are willing to do what most people would do when it comes to a service industry job. When you are hired at citizenM you aren't assigned to one specific position. Everyone assumes multiple roles that include everything from helping guests check in to bartending as well as food prep and service. So it's unique in terms of always having something new to do when you show up for work and can expect a busy day assuming multiple roles and assuring guests have a great experience.
The campaign we were hired to run was for the opening of their newest hotel in Austin, TX. Before any project like this gets to creative it goes through several analysts and project managers to define the specific needs of the client and the parameters of the campaign. When this landed on my and my CD's plate we were told it would be largely social media and job site based. We went to work on researching the company as well as all of their channels to get a feel for their brand and their voice and do our best to build upon that.
Our first round of creative was static posts with a heavy emphasis on messaging and directing people to a landing page that was built by citizenM's internal marketing team. It didn't quite land with the client like we had hoped and we had to go back to the drawing board. I soon came up with the idea of leveraging carousels to engage the viewer with photos of the hotel and employees working as well as peak interest in a career with the company.
This new direction was received well by the client and they wanted me to proceed with not only applying the new concept to the rest of the campaign but also coming up with a few animated posts. This led us down a new path and the client was excited about all the content we were creating.
Turning Challenges into Creativity: CitizenM's Austin Launch Campaign Transforms with Video
After we showed them the animated posts they wanted to ditch the carousels and static posts for animations. Being someone who loves animation I had no problem with this. Neither did the rest of the team. Everyone was excited about the new direction and the fact that we were finally at a point of getting the client excited about the project and the possibilities.
The whole time we were producing creative for the client, they were turning around and sharing it with their internal marketing team and that's where we were having difficulties. Being a secondary party vendor this was nothing new to us. What was unusual was not having direct contact with the marketing team in addition to basic assets like logos, branded photos, and videos. It's always a bit of a struggle getting what we need to produce content but myself and the rest of our team are pretty savvy about obtaining or creating what we need to get the job done.
After the animation was presented to their internal team it came back with a slew of changes and requests. One of them was to use video instead of animation as animation is used much in their brand. They sent a link to a Google folder with all kinds of videos and assets we were very much in need of. It's how it goes when you're an external agency working with an internal team. Comes with the territory.
I finally came up with some short videos by repurposing the content they sent us paired with our messaging and talent acquisition expertise. The videos were met with great praise by the client who wanted us to continue with this current direction. The videos are still in edit/review but should be ready for use later this summer when the Austin location is officially finished and open for business.
Campaign Stats
