Burj Al Arab in Dubai won HOTELS’ 2014 Social Hotel Award for Best Digital Video Campaign, Property.
For the third straight year, HOTELS is honoring the best of social media in the hotel industry with the Social Hotel Awards. The awards are presented in seven categories ranging from Best Facebook Page to Best Digital Video Campaign, and for each category, both a brand and a property are honored. In 2014, HOTELS received more than 250 global entries for the awards, which were chosen by a panel of social media experts and the staff editors of HOTELS.
Burj Al Arab targeted social opinion influencers and high-net-worth individuals by collaborating with Infiniti Red Bull Racing to create a video of a Formula One race car spinning around the hotel’s helipad, which is located 210 meters (688 ft) above the ground.
The hotel negotiated to have all costs of producing the video paid for by Red Bull, while the hotel paid approximately US$50,000 to promote the video online, which included using the #helipadstunts and paid distribution on YouTube and Facebook. Still images and a press release in English, Arabic, Russian, German and Chinese were distributed 24 hours after the stunt took place.
The video received more than 1.2 million views on the hotel’s official channel while Infiniti Red Bull Racing earned a further 545,000 views on its official YouTube channel. Unique visitors to Burj Al Arab’s direct booking website grew 74% on year-on-year, while Facebook reach grew 306.4%.
For a complete list of the 2014 Social Hotel Award winners as well as a rundown of the judges, see the October issue of HOTELS.