COVID-19 hit hospitality first and hardest. Omni temporarily closed roughly 86% of its hotels and needed a recovery campaign that could guide marketing for the brand and individual properties as they reopened.
The harder problem was the noise: every brand in every category was running the same stoic, sentimental "unprecedented times" message. We needed to acknowledge the moment honestly without disappearing into the sea of sameness.
At a time when the world was told every day to stay apart, we asked: what if that's only part of the story — and the whole story is to stay a part of what matters most? I conceived and led the recovery campaign strategy, concept, and art direction.
We built a modular headline structure with interchangeable nouns, so one recognizable campaign could flex by audience and market — Community, Safety, Hope for leisure guests; Hello, Welcome, Smiles for associates; Leadership, Progress, Conversation for group and business — and localize down to "Stay A Part Of DUUUVAL" in Jacksonville or "Hill Country" in Austin. The message came to life across paid, owned, and earned media and on-property.
A message rooted in the language of the moment, delivered where people already were — marrying truth with timeliness. It outperformed every benchmark: a 4.38 paid-media ROAS against a 3.85 benchmark on 104.4M paid impressions; 9.3M unique email opens at a 20% open rate and 14% click-to-open; and 1.44M organic social impressions driving 75.9K engagements against a 43K benchmark.
Earned media delivered 237 placements for 255M impressions — beating goal by 37 placements and 55M impressions — including The New York Times, USA Today, Business Insider, Skift, and The Points Guy. The "Stay A Part Of Travel" offer page assisted in more than 15% of all OmniHotels.com revenue during the period, and Omni extended the campaign through end of year on the strength of its continued relevance and results.