Marriott International continues to lead the way in digital and social marketing innovation with the launch of the company’s fourth M Live Studio. Located at Marriott’s European Headquarters in London, the newest studio will serve as the epicentre for creating real-time content and generating social engagement with travellers in Europe. M Live will engage in conversations in multiple languages including French, Spanish, German, Italian and English. M Live first launched at Marriott International’s headquarters in Bethesda, MD in 2015 and has since expanded to the Asia Pacific region, Caribbean and Latin America region, and now Europe. M Live empowers Marriott to interact with guests in a more personalised way and participate in one-to-one conversations on social platforms where travellers are already actively engaged. It tracks conversations, trends, global performance, marketing campaigns and brand reputation across social platforms in real-time, identifying opportunities for Marriott to engage consumers with its 19 brands and nearly 4,500 properties worldwide.
Marriott International’s vice president of global creative and content marketing, David Beebe, explained: “We created M Live with an understanding that real-time marketing always starts with the guest, and the best way to engage with consumers is to start a two-way conversation that is relevant to their needs and preferences as travellers.”
M Live is designed to engage with guests around cultural moments that are relevant to what they are already talking about on social media. “We’ve turned the tables from creating general content distributed to thousands of guests to listening and leveraging a single moment that’s relevant and shareable between thousands of guests.” Says Matthew Glick, senior director of global creative and content marketing, “Not only are we able to discover these moments to engage with consumers quickly, but also identify opportunities by brand, by discipline, by market and by channel to create memorable and shareable experiences.”
M Live is able to identify trending social stories around the world and quickly ascertain ways to join the conversation. A recent example saw M Live picking up a story about a New Zealand backpacker who was travelling the world with his favourite Lego figurines and documenting their adventures on social media. After connecting the dots to find @TheLegoBackpacker, Marriott was able to host The Lego Backpacker, and his real-life owner, at the AC Hotel Ciudad de Sevilla, resulting in content for the AC Hotels brand that was then amplified through Lego’s social channels bringing in an additional 370,000+ social followers into the conversation.
“We know that the next-generation of travellers are digitally savvy, constantly connected, and are looking for a more personalised one-to-one relationship with our portfolio of brands.” says Osama Hirzalla, vice president brand marketing and e-commerce, Europe. “The power of M Live Europe is that we can now engage with travellers in more regionally and culturally relevant ways that are meaningful to them.”
To date, M Live has created a number of successful real-time marketing efforts that have driven consumer engagement. Additionally, in partnership with HYP3R, M Live uses geo-fencing technology to uncover untagged social conversations that guests are having at Marriott properties and identifies opportunities to create a better guest experience. For example, the M Live team discovered a tweet that a guest posted from the Domes of Elounda Autograph Collection Hotel in Greece. M Live created an on-property breakfast moment and also surprised the guest with Marriott Rewards points leading him to share his excitement on Twitter and create user-generated content for the Autograph Collection brand and hotel.
