Hilton’s Mark Weinstein on driving loyalty and inspiring wanderlust

Weinstein shares why data and technology are crucial to Hilton’s customers’ experience, the creative philosophy for the hotel’s recent campaign with Paris Hilton, and marketing against home-sharing companies. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.Damian: (00:01)I'm Damian Fowler.Ilyse: (00:02)And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. AndDamian: (00:03)Welcome to this edition of the current podcast.Ilyse: (00:10)This week we're delighted to talk with Mark Weinstein, the Chief Marketing Officer at Hilton.Damian: (00:16)Mark joined Hilton more than 13 years ago rising to become the CMO in 2020, where he now leads global marketing for the Hilton portfolio of over 7,300 hotels across 22 brands in 123 countries and territoriesIlyse: (00:32)As travel surged. After all that pent up Wonderlust created during the pandemic, the hotel brand unveiled its biggest marketing push in six years. The campaign focuses on the quality of the travel experience with Hilton Brands. So Mark Hilton, of course, has its own loyalty program, the free Hilton Honors. How many Hilton guests currently take part in this program? What does it offer in terms of perks?Mark: (01:02)We have 165 million Hilton Honor members and growing. We're the fastest growing loyalty program in travel. And what we love about Hilton Honors, it allows us to get to know our guests to personalize the experience for them. And it also connects all 22 brands. 'cause what's interesting about our portfolio is each brand serves a travel need, budget and occasion. And you may transverse the brands for your different needs. And so Hilton Honors is that connective tissue, whether you're an infrequent traveler and Hilton Honors is a way to give you the best value for booking through hilton.com directly. So we get to know who you are, things like free wifi and points towards that free stay, a more elite member who can earn additional benefits like automated upgrades that we're delivering so you have even better stay or even that ability to dream for that once in a lifetime experience with our partners at McLaren, uh, F one Racing or Live Nation. Uh, and which you can of course further accelerate with things like our credit cards along the journey. So there's something for everyone, uh, along the Hilton Honors program. And of course, as you said, it's free to join, so you'd be crazy not to get that additional value.Ilyse: (01:56)Now how would you say like technology such as like your digital platforms and mobile app also play a role basically in enhancing the guest experience in order to foster like that loyalty and that wonderlust?Mark: (02:09)Yeah. The interesting thing about our technology, I would say it, it focuses in two different ways. All in service of that wonderlust. In some ways it's taking the friction outta travel so you can focus on doing what you're there to do, which is explore and find a great stay experience. So some of our innovations around digital key and the ability to choose your room in the app before you even get there, you know exactly what room you're gonna have. The ability to book confirm connecting rooms for parents. There's nothing more stressful than wondering if you're gonna get those rooms together. We actually are able to confirm it at time of booking. The ability to personalize the stay and choose things you want, the ability to message with the front desk, those are all friction removing items of the travel journey. They take away that interaction at the front desk where it's highly transactional.Mark: (02:48)That frees you up to then have a human conversation. Where do the locals like to eat? Where's the best place to get that Instagrammable rooftop bar shot, you know, as the sun's coming down. So that's one aspect of our technology is making the guest experience better, uh, and easier. On the other hand, putting the wonderlust back in. So you look at our social media abilities to connect with customers with the things they want to hear most about, to produce content and serve it up, whether it's on the interim TV with our connected room, digital TVs through the app itself or on our websites. The ability to let you personalize choices on Hilton Honors. What benefits you most wanna earn on that trip, or the ability to serve up what interesting experiences you might wanna use your honors points for. And so that Wonder Lust is enabled by both the simplifying the basics and really making it straightforward so we're always reliable and friendly to our guests. And then it also supercharging that, that sort of wonder lust that makes you wanna explore the planet.Ilyse: (03:37)How does like data then come into play from your loyalty program to tailor your marketing efforts and create those very unique experiences?Mark: (03:46)Data plays a critical role in everything we do for our customers. Whether that is for our less frequent travelers, trying to better get them the right content on initial stay. Like lots of people travel very infrequently and when they do, it's the trip of a lifetime. So we wanna make sure we use contextual clues from the data, where they came from, what they're engaging with to serve up the right hotel, the right products, the right experiences for that trip. Our Hilton honors members, our best customers who we know extremely well, we can be even more personalized. We can serve up the dream destinations they most want to go to. When you're looking at our website, you're seeing the kind of rooms you typically book, you know, 'cause we know you so well giving you add-on abilities. Things that we know you always add onto your trip are even easier at the fingertips.Mark: (04:24)So that, that's one aspect of it. Second aspect of it is product innovation. You know, the insights of our customers are telling us where we need to go next. They help us pick the next destinations. You know, we're opening about a hotel a day, they help us build new brands, places where we know our customers are looking for a great product, but maybe we don't have a category. And it becomes our design target, our muse for designing a new brand where we create partnerships, the products that we put in our hotels, the partners we affiliate with to build out that journey. So it's, it's both myopically used to, to give you a personalized experience in the moment itself, but also helping us innovate and build the pipeline of where we go next with who we go next and how we build out the brands.Damian: (05:00)Let's talk a bit about the actual marketing campaigns that you've launched. I know that last year you launched the biggest marketing push in six years. Um, it's the Hilton for the Stay platform. The tagline is, it matters where you stay. And that was a campaign, uh, created by TBWA Jet Day and that features Paris Hilton for the very first time, who's seen giving travel tips. Could you talk a little bit about that campaign and why you launched this big campaign last year? ComingMark: (05:26)Outta the pandemic, it would be really easy to get into that sea of sameness, trpi that was out there. You had this desire to reconnect and of course that was an important message, but every company in travel was gonna say the same thing, is saying the same thing and has done so for, you know, decades that empty, you can picture it, that empty beach with a nobody on the beach chair and the clear blue ocean. You can't tell if it's a credit card, a hotel company, an airline, a travel agency, or anything in between. So we knew there was kinda the sea of sameness. There was a tendency to fall in that trope of re connectivity coming outta the pandemic. So we used that moment, uh, during the pandemic to both double down on our customer relationships, donate a million rooms to frontline medical responders, do all the things you do in that moment, but really look ahead to what the future would be.Mark: (06:04)And what we realized was we had never had a platform to tell our story consistently. And in a sea of sameness of this kind of eat, pray, love wonderlust of travel and people on goji berries and surfboards, that's not my travel experience most of the time. Why were we glorifying the destination but not the thing we provide in this travel experience? The stay itself. And we thought back to our founder, uh, Conrad Hilton over a hundred years ago said it was our job to fill the earth with the light and warmth, the hospitality. So we had this really unique purpose in the world, very different than everyone else, and yet a sea of sameness marketing, uh, environment. And what we realized was we were going from campaign to campaign, getting sick of it before anybody else even saw it, before it even wore in. We needed a platform, we needed our version of what we're gonna stand for.Mark: (06:45)And so as we looked with TBWA, the answer was there all along. It's the stay. It doesn't matter how you travel, it doesn't matter how you live your life. When you come to our hotel and you cross that transom, it just feels different when it's at Hilton and at the heart of every great trip is a great stay. And so the stay became that, that that glue. We then look for stories you could tell on top of it. Uh, it matters where you stay as our first campaign to tell that story. Bringing other influencers and creators in to help tell their authentic story. And who more authentic than the great-granddaughter of the founder of our company, Paris Hilton, who has lived her life literally in our hotels, you know, born and raised in in many of our hotels, traveled the world. So we try to find a lot of different ways in to tell that story all connected back to these 22 brands, how they're all part of Hilton and how ultimately were for this day,Damian: (07:27)How significant was it? Was the fact that you launched this across many different channels?Mark: (07:32)I mean, fir look, first of all, we wanna be where our customers are. I mean that, that's ultimately drives this conversation. And, and you know, just using linear as an example, you know, your go-to oftentimes as a classically trained marketer is to to be on tv. And of course we need to be there. There's some reach and frequency in the saliency that comes with that. But the reality is increasingly our customers are engaging with brands differently. Uh, and whether that's on social media or their favorite creators, our ability to give up control a bit, which is hard as a brand owner, right? As as a brand leader. And you realize very quickly we actually don't own the brand that customers do. Their perception becomes reality. Their reality becomes the brand. So we better meet them where they are. Podcasting and audio is a huge trend coming particularly accelerated outta the pandemic.Mark: (08:09)Uh, social media obviously has been, you know, a rocket ship. Uh, your ability to even functionally serve up search results. SEO is being generated by your ability to be indexable on, you know, YouTube and, and TikTok and other places. So it's, it's a no brainer to be with the customers are. And and what's amazing to me about marketing this great discipline we all get to do is that the fundamentals are the same, right? We're still telling great stories like we're doing for hundreds of years that is just so authentically human, but how we get to do it is rapidly changing it faster than any time in history. And so that's why we went omnichannel duringDamian: (08:40)The pandemic of, of course people stopped traveling, they had to, and we saw a big surge of travel after that based on that wonderlust, that desire to get out of the house. According to the US Travel Association, total travel spending this year is still going up 4% over last year, year over year. Is that your perception? Is that your understanding travel demand is still very strong?Mark: (09:01)Yeah, look, coming, coming outta the crisis, I mean every single year of the last three years has been stronger than the previous. Uh, the reality is there's so much pent up demand and one or lost. I, I think there were some mechanic things like people had record levels of savings. But more importantly we had this golden age of travel going into the pandemic, you know, record levels of middle class all across the world, getting to experience travel for the first time that pause, but it didn't break during the pandemic. There was a very explainable reason, the pandemic to stop doing that. But the demand was still there. The desire was still there. And then it got accelerated when people realized how fragile freedom is, right? That at the end of the day, at any given time, your bucket list comes to a screeching halt. So why is it a bucket list?Mark: (09:37)Why is it not a tomorrow list? Why is it not a today list? Let's go out and do it. And then you started to see flexibility of working, right? This idea that I had to be on this calendar schedule where my kids had to get to back to school at a certain time or I needed back in the office, that dynamic changed as well. And so you have record amount of demand, you had a very acute moment where we all realized, my goodness, the thing I love to do could go away at any time. And then life became more flexible. It has led to record levels of travel all across the world. And our hotels are certainly seeing record levels of customers engaging with us.Ilyse: (10:07)So Hilton has a diverse portfolio, brands 22 to be precise. How does the marketing strategy then differ across these brands to cater to those like various travel segments?Mark: (10:19)It's a great question. Look, each brand has a design target, a ause that we use to design that and, and s sort an archetype that we're really focusing on. We build out that prototype of what it's gonna look like, feel like what brands are gonna appear in the hotel itself, what's the color palette, the look and feel, the logo, all those things that you'd expect us to do. And each brand has to win its category, right? All of 'em have, you know, great competitors that, that are offering options the same price point. So we gotta be differentiated. What's important for us though is that by Hilton or the name Hilton in the brand, which is in all 22 brands, is not a holding company. We're not a, we're not a sort of CPG company that just happens to own these brands and lets 'em all pure play, compete.Mark: (10:55)They all have a purposeful role in the journey. And so you may be at a Hilton resort, you know, having a great trip in Aruba and then suddenly you're at your kid's soccer game or you know, football match at a Hampton Inn somewhere in the world or you know, that you need to be in and then a Walter for story for your honeymoon. So you're transversing those brands by Hilton has to mean something by Hilton has to also be the connective tissue. And so it's this fun challenging balance of having 22 brands each with their own personality that commands premiums in their category, while also reminding customers that it matters that these are by Hilton and that you'll get the benefits of Hilton Honors and all the things we innovate and drive. Uh, along the journey.Ilyse: (11:30)Hilton recently conducted research into how different generations travel. What were like, the major takeaways from the research, for instance is like one generation travel more than the other.Mark: (11:41)You know, some trends you see are about where you are in your lifecycle, right? Obviously the older you get the the more you typically have more disposable income and time just definitionally. When you're younger, you're often in the early stage of your career, maybe your family's younger. So there, there's those dynamics. But we do look at each generation to see what's pervasive and what's what's there. The first was the focus on wellness. People are looking particularly for restorative sleep. Uh, when you looked at I think the lowest end of the, of the spectrum, you know, 55% of Gen Z were saying that's the primary purpose of their trip. All they up to 70% of, uh, boomers and and Gen X were saying the primary purpose of the trip was restorative sleep, right? So we take that responsibility very, very seriously that you need to be rested and relaxed when you come to our hotel.Mark: (12:20)Second trend we saw was a seamless digital experience, right? This ability to dream shop book, experience the entire, stay digitally and personalize that journey for you. And so as you look at our innovation agenda, whether that's putting your mind at ease when you book that, you've got a confirmed connecting room, whether that's knowing you can message the front desk, you know, how many times, uh, I know for me I'm in the room and I don't really wanna go back to the front desk. I don't really wanna call and bother them, but I could use more towels or I could use, uh, a beverage after the, the bars maybe close for the night to build a message to the front desk and have 'em respond back. That's pretty powerful. So how do we digitally engage with our customers all generations? You know, it may start with younger travelers, but I'm telling you that the boomers are just the same in terms of wanting the ease and access of a seamless digital booking experience and engaging experience.Mark: (13:01)The third is, uh, local experiences. So people go somewhere to do something typically. And so they want our hotels to help 'em connect with the neighborhoods. Where's the offbeat path? Yes, you'll see the big museum or the big, you know, sculpture in town or whatever it may be. But tell me what locals do. Where do they eat? Where do I go around here? And maybe some of that's in the hotel. Maybe we have a great, you know, Michelin star restaurant in the hotel and we can get you a reservation that you can otherwise have. So a third trend we saw was connecting with the local experience and not wanting a cookie cutter trip. Even. You know, you want a reliable hotel. And the last, and I mentioned this earlier, the dynamic of business travel has changed wildly. You know, as I think about my career and a lot of our consumers say the same thing, it was an interruption in your life.Mark: (13:41)It was, you know, I had my life at home and then I go do business travel and that's gonna stop my momentum at home. The flexibility we now all have to be virtual for an extra week. It allows us to extend a business trip into a personal trip. The ability to have your kids join you on the weekend. Suddenly now you can use that momentum of a business trip to be the catalyst for bringing your whole family along. 'cause the kids can miss a day of school or take a zoom class instead of having to be back in class. And so that journey has been blended. And so when we look at the trends across all generations, that ability to make it digitally and seamless for them is really important. The ability to be locally connected, that ability to ultimately blend the work in business, travel, uh, business and and leisure at the very top of it, the whole thing. Make sure that when you leave that hotel, you feel rested and restored. Whether that's mind, body or soul.Damian: (14:22)And in terms of your marketing calendar, your marketing cadence, you talk about all these many different streams you're looking at, how do you think about the rollout of campaigns?Mark: (14:31)A lot of markets have a natural pacing to them. There are, you know, there's golden week in China twice a year, right there, there's things that you lean into because that is a natural catalyst. We, despite all the flexibility I talked about earlier, we still in the US have big summer breaks. That's a big time to send people, you know, on holiday. But also watching customer cues, right? We were able to, a lot of the, the channels we talked about earlier are pool channels, not push channels. So as customers are engaging on video, on demand and they're watching programming about travel destinations or food destinations, let's, let's plug into that moment. Let's activate and trigger. We're watching social media all the time for moments to intercept. You know, we've got examples where there was a home sharing customer whose dad thought they booked a house for four.Mark: (15:08)It was a shed that was big enough for one person. They had two dogs and four kids. And it was crazy. We texted them and said, you know, we message 'em on Twitter and TikTok and got ahold of 'em and said, come to our hotel. Uh, we had one the other day who texted her at home sharing host and said, uh, we're at a toilet paper. Where do I find more? And they said, the supermarket. And we said, well that's crazy. Our hotel has come to our hotel, right? So you find these little human moments along the way. And so it takes the pressure outta marketing to some degree 'cause the customers are telling you when they want to hear about you. And we've got ready to go stories. The last example I would give is cultural tent poles. So we've got a long standing partnership with the Grammys.Mark: (15:43)Uh, we have a long history music. Uh, John Lennon wrote, imagine in the New York Hilton on a piece of stationary, had the bed in for peace at the Hilton in Amsterdam. Elvis did residencies. Freddie Mercury wrote a crazy little thing called Love in the Bathtub at the Hilton Frankert. Yeah. And so we belong in music, right? So Grammys becomes a big tent pole to tell our story. Formula one with McLaren and Lando Norris, uh, on a McLaren F one racing team. The big moment in the Vegas race will tell that story. So there, there are these moments where you can lean into culture, where the stay is really at the heart of what's possible and that just becomes an authentic way to connect with our customers.Damian: (16:14)I wanna ask you about sustainability and eco-conscious travel, which should become increasingly important. Can you talk about how Hilton incorporates those concepts and those initiatives into its marketing efforts to resonate with environmentally conscious travelers? ThisMark: (16:27)Is very top of mind. We have a huge responsibility. We have over a million and you know, almost a million and a half rooms across the world. And the decisions we make can make or break products for distribution. And so one of the things we did on the product side is we moved to bulk amenities. This idea that you're not gonna have those tiny little bottles that get thrown out every stay. We've got refillable bottles that are safe and secure and sealed and everything else, but the real driver was environmental impact, right? We, we are big enough that our ability to use reusable bottles for water, the ability to use refillable bottles in the, in the bath amenities, that has a huge impact on our supply chain. And so first and foremost is that second we have the ability for companies that are keeping track of their impact.Mark: (17:02)Or, you know, even for conscious consumers, we're tracking all the energy uses at our hotels and we're giving recommendations to the hotels how to save energy based on consumer behaviors. We're able to turn down the thermostats when the guests leave the room. We're able to do the things that actually make a difference. On the marketing side, it, it's kind of a funny scenario. And that customers care more than ever, as as they should. They'll tell you in a focus group, they'll pay a premium or they want to hear about they, they really don't. They, they want to have a great trip, but they wanna know underneath that great trip, you're doing the right thing. And so we're not necessarily gonna always put it front and center and say, this is an eco-conscious trip, but we better have the proof points for you that you'll know that the trip you're having that not paying a premium, but paying what you already pay includes Hilton's commitment to doing that.Mark: (17:41)So that's really important. And on the marketing side, look, we have to look at sustainable sourcing of things. We have to look at who our supply chain is with what are we buying and who are we buying it from. We built these rooms, these hotel rooms on golf courses, uh, for, you know, big golf activations and they're fun and they're great for three days. We've donated a couple of those to local schools to use as play facilities, right? So are you thinking through the entire journey and then the tricky part to your question coming back to that is just how much do customers really want to hear that story versus just know intuitively and instinctively that your brand stands for it and it's committed and the dollars they're spending are being reinvested in their communities and being reinvested for the environmental impact.Ilyse: (18:17)What emerging trends or channels do you see as having the most significant impact on Hilton's marketing strategy in 2024?Mark: (18:26)I look back to where we are today versus when I studied marketing, uh, you know, a number of years ago in school, too many years ago in school. And, you know, the channels we're using most today didn't even exist. Literally did not exist. Social media was not even really a thing. Uh, and suddenly here it is our number one channel for a number of ways to connect with customers. And so we will rejoice in the fact that marketing is job is always and will continue to be great storytelling. And that's not going anywhere. That is the heart of what we do. What will change and continue to accelerate for us is how we do that more on social, right? More on streaming and video on demand. You know, as you start to pivot from, I think this year was the first year that consumers officially watch more video not on linear TV than than on linear tv.Mark: (19:04)That trend will continue and so we'll need to meet them where they are on streaming and video on demand and YouTube and other platforms. You'll see us show up in TikTok and Instagram and show up on the platforms where we can tell authentic, credible stories. I think the more fun part for us is giving away the keys to the castle a bit, right? So we're gonna be doing more with creators and letting them tell their authentic story about a Hilton's day. And while you might not always have all the brand controls you have, the authenticity outweighs the impact of losing a little bit of your ability to control for every sentence and every, you know, color that they use in in their work. And then lastly, we'll look for ways to activate, um, at big cultural tent pole moments, showing up in an activational way with experiential marketing to let customers truly experience what our brand stands for in the moments that matter most to them, reminding them that it matters where you stay and that Hilton is for this day.Damian: (19:51)That's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week. So stay tuned.Ilyse: (19:56)The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Leyer and Cat fei.Damian: (20:05)And remember, youMark: (20:07)Realize very quickly we actually don't own the brand that customers do. Their perception becomes reality. Their reality becomes the brand. So we better meet them where they are.Damian: (20:15)I'm Damien andIlyse: (20:16)I'm AiseDamian: (20:17)And we'll see you next time.