Episode 130 - Hilton For the Stay Ad Reviewed by PensionBee, Kumospace and Caterpillar

Would you watch a 10-minute TikTok? Even for Hilton Honors points? 

Hilton think you will. And they’re proving it with their latest ad, “For the Stay”, chosen by Contagious.

This is definitely a different approach from the brand, almost an awkward mash-up of ads mimicking your TikTok feed. Our guests Jasper Martens (Chief Marketing Officer at PensionBee), Drew Moffitt (Marketing at Kumospace) and Atilla Vékony (Global Marketing Lead at Caterpillar) had mixed opinions on the experiment and rated it 3.33 / 5.

Is this the ultimate meta ad? Watch the latest episode of Advertisers Watching Ads and see what you think!

Episode 130 - Hilton For the Stay Ad Reviewed by PensionBee, Kumospace and Caterpillar

Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!

Tom Ollerton 0:00

Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative and this is a weekly show where brands discuss other brands' ads.

Tom Ollerton 0:34

So before we see this week's ad, let's meet this week's guests.

Jasper Martens 0:38

I'm Jasper, and I am the Chief Marketing Officer at PensionBee.

Drew Moffitt 0:42

Yeah, I'm Drew Moffitt. I'm one of the earliest employees and lead marketing at Kumospace.

Atilla Vékony 0:47

I'm Atilla Vékony, Global Marketing Lead at Caterpillar.

Tom Ollerton 0:52

Right, have we got an ad for you today! This ad is from Hilton, and it's on TikTok, and it's a 10-minute ad, and this is a 10-minute show, so let's see what happens.

Tom Ollerton 3:58

So how many votes would you give this ad out of five? One, two, three... A four, a four, and a two. There we go... Jasper, what's the wider context? What are Hilton trying to do here?

Jasper Martens 4:12

People are just not watching TV anymore. Anything of modern traditional media. So TikTok is definitely one of those platforms where people go to, to entertain themselves. Definitely, that's where people are more and more are to consume content. TikTok is very much known for short content. You swipe up for the next one. And in this particular case, knowing that TikTok wants to go for longer form content... Let's push the boundaries in terms of what long looks like, this pushing the boat a little bit by 10 minutes. So you're looking at a long form piece of content on a short form style platform. And you're also doing it on a platform that's increasingly more popular, not just with people who are 20 years old. I know plenty of people my age, who are hooked on TikTok and definitely are not on Instagram.

Atilla Vékony 4:56

The only person I was familiar with was Paris Hilton. Obviously, it was brilliant to have her be the opening act, to bring in a wider audience.

Drew Moffitt 5:06

Often in advertising, in marketing, you have to take these kind of crazy risks, because sometimes you will get rewarded. So I'd love to see what their metrics look like for the ad because either this ad is somehow amazing performing and they're loving, throwing dollars at it, or it fell completely on its face. I do think it is kind of that interesting thing, how there's like a longer story. But you know, the other judges were making a good example that like, it's sort of like they're trying to mimic the TikTok feed, right? Like you were to swipe and then you get the next piece of the ad, which is some kind of cool, interesting trickery.

Atilla Vékony 5:43

I do think that it was masterful, and brilliant. And in terms of targeting audience, targeting the audience, it may not be me and Jasper personally, I do think they know very well, their audience. And they know very well the platform, what works, and what doesn't. And it is, to me, it's the ultimate meta, meta ad. It's like the Inception movie of the advertising world. I do think that they do achieve the seemingly impossible, which is having a 10-minute ad on TikTok. And they do this by employing magic, a sleight of hand, so to speak. So to me, this whole thing is like I'm invited to a magic show. And the magician explains how he or she is going to do this magic. And I'm watching it because I want to know how it works. And in the end, it turns out that there was a magic that I didn't expect. And I'm thoroughly entertained throughout the whole ad.

Jasper Martens 6:50

This is unusual for TikTok, and especially for a brand to do so because normally, we advertise on TikTok ourselves, like... Your first response is, "Let's just get one of our really slick and nice ads off the shelves and just put it on TikTok." Well, that ain't going to work. But the way they've done it, I don't think it's been done before. So suddenly, you've got this 10 minutes, like, weird mash up of like lots of TikTok trends and styles together and I think because of the weirdness, a lot of people will have stuck around and think, "Hey, have you seen this? This is awkward." Share, like, etc.

Drew Moffitt 7:24

I would have cut this down into a lot smaller pieces. The part of the ad I liked the most was about like the cleaning and the cleaning fees on Airbnb and that, that was funny. And I feel that they could have easily probably worked with a bunch of creators who are basically travel influencers or digital nomads and said, "Hey, like make a bunch of jokes about how ridiculous the Airbnb fees are, or like the self-clean requirement list is, and you know stitch that into "This is why I don't stay in like a Vrbo, Airbnb anymore. And this is why I prefer a luxury brand. Like Hilton." I think that might have done better for them because it would have just like, branded with the viewers of those content creators.

Tom Ollerton 7:24

What can the industry learn from this?

Atilla Vékony 8:12

To me, it was the importance of knowing how the platform works, in this case, TikTok and knowing the audience on that platform, and how bold Hilton Hotels was in taking on this challenge that they gave to themselves, and just how brilliantly and masterfully they created this. This would not work on any other platform and any other platforms' ads would not work in, on this particular platform. So to me, the lesson is, knowing your audience and knowing the platform.

Jasper Martens 8:45

What I would like to take away for my team is laugh about ourselves a little bit. Just don't take ourselves seriously. I love that piece. Like, the author doesn't really take themselves so seriously. And I think sometimes as marketers, we are very much like, "Oh, it has to be squeaky clean..." And reputation. And actually, it shouldn't be. On TikTok, you can go a little bit, like, you can laugh. I probably... We have got to be, I wonder what I can do to be actually, would like, scare the hell out of people in a TikTok video, right? Right. We could, we could've, rather than having this perfect... that the people here look to and like aspire to actually. We should do something like it, flies into the Volkswagen van, and scares the hell out of people. Maybe that's, that's what this is about. And that's what we should learn, I think from things like this.

Tom Ollerton 9:30

So unfortunately, we are at the end of the show now. So would you sign off this ad in its current form? And that's a simple yes or no? One, two, three... Two yes and a no. Brilliant. Atilla, Drew, Jasper, thank you so much for your time. I'll see you all next week.