Case Study

I Spy’s deployment of the Check In Check Out Later geo-location based initiative and QR coded menus for Radisson Edwardian perfectly integrate on-line and off-line marketing and engaged the target audience in a cost-effective and innovative way that created buzz, generated widespread coverage and rewarded customers for engaging with the brand via social media.

Brief

To deliver innovative social media campaigns which engage the brand's digitally enlightened customer base, deliver strong ROI, create buzz and provide and position the brand as a leader within the industry for its social media use.

Strategy

Our strategy was to analyse trends amongst the hotel visitors and find ways to enhance their experience. Through this we picked up on some key trends including:

a) the growing amount of check-ins on Geo location based social media such as Foursquare and Facebook
b) growing amount of business travellers eating alone in the hotel restaurants and using smartphones to keep themselves entertained
c) growing use of mobile

Execution

QR Coded Menus
The hotel chain had video footage of some of the dishes on the menus being cooked by the hotel chefs. We simply added QR Codes to the menus to offer access to this footage, providing diners, particularly lone diners, with engaging and informing content to accompany their meal. We also educated the dining staff on the use of QR Code scanners to get them on board and involved and also able to help educate diners who may be unaware of the technology.

Check-In Check-Out Later
We picked up on a rapidly growing trend amongst guests using location based apps to check in to the hotels and devised a way to engage and reward our loyal and digitally switched-on customers by allowing them to enjoy the Radisson Edwardian experience that little bit longer. At check-in, the customer simply has to show front desk that they've checked in via their smartphone to enjoy all the benefits of a late check out. For Foursquare, we created a “Special” which raised awareness of the promotion as soon as customers check in.

Radisson Edwardian used their Hotel Champions (carefully selected hotel social media ambassadors) to evangelise and educate hotel staff on the campaigns.
Both campaigns were delivered to tight budgets and supported through PR and promotion on Radisson Edwardian’s blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Results

QR Coded Menus
- 500+ tweets mentioning the QR coded menus campaign
- Coverage of the campaign in Financial Times Travel amongst other notable publications
- Positive feedback from the diners themselves

Check In Check Out Later
- Generated over 900 tweets
- Picked up and reported on by global social media site Mashable (40 million+ monthly page views)
- Foursquare highlighted the campaign as an example of best practice in their blog post celebrating over 500,000 businesses on their social network