Perhaps no mode of travel is as all-American as the road trip: There’s just something about a full tank of gas and the open highway that spells freedom. And perhaps no stretch of roadway is more all-American than the iconic Route 66, the 2,400-mile ribbon of pavement that reaches from Chicago to Los Angeles—and into the imagination of a generation of American travelers.
Beloved for its mom-and-pop hotels and restaurants, roadside attractions and nostalgic neon signs, Route 66 is a symbol of America’s mid-century optimism and newfound automotive independence. It’s therefore easy to understand why Best Western International, a hotel brand with deep American roots and a reputation for family-friendly accommodations, would center a marketing campaign on the heralded highway. After all, tapping into customers’ sense of nostalgia is nothing new in advertising.
But what is novel is Best Western’s ability to blend that sentimentality with sophisticated technology to engage customers across multiple digital channels. With tools such as Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Target and Adobe Analytics, Best Western has kept pace with tech demands, explains Felipe Carreras, the company’s director of e-commerce.
The award-winning Best Western Route 66 Geocache Contest brought the history and charm of the historic highway to digital life, driving both online and actual traffic to Best Western hotels along the route. At bestwesternroute66.com, a virtual road trip showcased the hotels and highlights of the roadway, from an Arizona drive-in diner to a Superman-inspired ice cream parlor in Missouri. It also included a geocache game using clues from the brand’s social media channels.
Integrating this cross-channel approach with the nostalgic appeal of Route 66 proved to be a boon for Best Western. The campaign boosted site traffic by 10 percent and drove a four-fold increase in social media engagements, contributing to more than one million likes for the company’s Facebook page. The success also translated beyond the digital realm, resulting in real-world increases in revenue, new Best Western Rewards member sign-ups and reactivation of dormant members. The contest was so successful that Best Western revived it for summer 2015, creating an online scavenger hunt on the Route 66 site.
But the historic route isn’t the only example of how Best Western has employed a cross-channel marketing strategy to tap into travelers’ innate fondness for the open road. In 2014, the brand launched a fully redesigned blog, You Must Be Trippin’, creating a forum for tourist tips, road trip reflections and a celebration of all things travel. Best Western’s #roadtrippin partnership with AAA also strikes a chord with road warriors through inspirational social media videos and a Pandora station populated with songs that will make listeners want to roll down the windows and drive.
Combined with a thoughtful execution across multiple digital channels, Best Western’s data-driven marketing approach has helped the brand achieve robust growth and reach customers beyond the bounds of their hotel room.
