Hilton hotels Promoting Kindness

July 26, 2007 · By Jens

HiltonBe

Hilton Hotels has been promoting a very interesting, clever, and interactive campaign (Be Hospitable) with a positive-messaged idea in print magazines such as Newsweek as well as on US Cable TV.

The site allows people to record hospitable deeds and outstanding acts of human kindness that occur around the globe. According to Hitlon Hotels, this is the philosphy upon which the Hilton experience was founded.

Be hospitable is both a tag line and a philosophy of which consumers are invited to share stories. Stories are linked to dots on a map of the United States which is a bit awkward to navigate. The value of this is effort is to reinforce the quality of hospitality with the Hilton brands. It doesn’t take the place though of the basics of figuring out how to build the individual brands (e.g. Waldorf Astoria, DoubleTree) while still associating them with the parent Hilton brand and of ensuring that the most important features of the hotels are present every time - for example, the bed must be comfortable!

Associating the Hilton brand with hospitality and acts of kindness will ultimately mean nothing if the experience of staying in a Hilton brand hotel isn’t enjoyable and doesn’t meet the traveler’s needs.

But linking the brand essence to a well executed social media viral marketing campaign - I have to say that I am very impressed. Another great use of social media to connect people in travel has been done by KLM Airlines.