Rokkan, Hyatt Are Opening Doors For People

By Erik Oster 

New York agency Rokkan has a launched a new experiential campaign for Hyatt, entitled “In A Hyatt World,” a “multi-channel initiative that connects social sharing with real-world experiences” and delivers Hyatt hospitality in unexpected places.

Rokkan Marketing and Communications Manager Melyssa Brown explains that the campaign was born from the idea that “brands have gotten too caught up building virtual, digital relationships with their guests, and we wanted to work with Hyatt to remove that arm’s length, get back into the real world, and real interaction back to life.” While social media engagement is important to delivering their message, the real heart of the campaign is direct engagement.

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The first phase of the campaign saw real Hyatt employees holding doors for everyone who passed through random locations in ten cities around the world. It’s an exceedingly simple idea, extending a small nicety they’d like to see associated with their brand. It’s easy to scoff at such an idea, but we can all use a little bit of nice on a Monday, right?

The video documenting the door holding phase of the campaign is just as simple. It presents the idea, without narration, and shows Hyatt associates in the ten different locations holding doors for people. The spot ends by directing viewers to the campaign’s Tumblr and #InAHyattWorld hashtag. Detractors may fault this campaign for being overly-simplistic and forgettable, and they may have a point. But there’s also something refreshing about the approach, which favors direct engagement over agencies’ usual digital obsessions (even if it does in fact concede to a few of these).

Future phases of the campaign should be more substantial (and memorable), and include passing out phone chargers, juice stations, “saving” people stuck in the rain, pop-up spas and more. These will take place weekly, in locations around the world, throughout the next few weeks.

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