Marriott and Meta: Why Creator Marketing Is Driving Travel Bookings

0:01I am here with Sanjay and Laura. They just wrapped their session at the Skift Creator Summit talking about the creator intelligence era. Can you guys each introduce yourselves? Give us a little bit of background about your roles and then I want to dive into what you just talked about on that stage. Absolutely. Hi, I'm Laura. I'm super excited to be here. And I lead creative and content for US and Canada specifically. So I've been at Marriott almost 20 years. So right place at the right time. I started when social started to explode and evolve, and I've just kind of grown up with it. And my whole career at Marriott's either been in the creative space.

0:36So it's just really fun to see how it's grown. I started in PR, which then morphed into social and marketing and kind of everything in between. And fun for Laura and I, we actually used to work together at Marriott. So this is a very fun reuniting of the forces. Sanjay, what about yourself? Thanks for having me. Sanjay Bhatia. I've been at Meta for, well, Facebook, Instagram, Meta for 15 years. I've led the travel business there for, in some capacity, for almost a decade. So led through the pandemic and coming out of it and most recently leading our large travel partnership. So obviously Marriott's been a very, very close partner of ours.

1:13We were just talking when you guys got off stage about how much has changed in the last 10 to 15 years, not only with social media, but also with travel. As you mentioned, you led through the pandemic. So what are you seeing as the biggest things that people need to be paying attention to when it comes to creators in the travel space today that's different than when you first started in your role? I think from our perspective, it was a nice to have five years ago in the sense of I think a lot of brands were trying to dip their toes in the water and figuring out what they could do um there wasn't there wasn't a lot of measurement to back up the impact it was driving it was a tactic that people were hopeful would drive brand value and create brand value in some respect i think what's different now is like the results are in um and they're and they're fairly consistent which is that it's just performing so much better um than a normal normal ad would uh and and people are craving that that trust that authenticity the transparency that comes from um creator marketing and so a lot of brands are really intelligently using it to reach customers and drive bookings.

2:15Yeah. I think for me, it's really about, it's grown so much as you know, but I do think the core of like being authentic and telling stories has remained. We've just now been able to verbalize success a little bit better and be able to show key metrics and why this matters. I'm the ultimate consumer. I'm like, Ooh, that Facebook ad, love it. Gonna buy it. That creator ad, that new skin cream. Like I'm here for it. So I've always been an advocate of like, if this is affecting my everyday purchases, and it was doing this 10 years ago before we even knew what it was really called, you kind of have to stay on the breast of like what's happening and what's popular and being able to communicate that to stakeholders in a way that they understand.

2:53So I think everyone now understands on this playing field, but kind of what we were talking about was like, how do you scale it and how do you continue to test and learn? Because that's super important. There isn't a one size fits all. What I might be doing might be different actually than my global counterparts might be doing. And that's okay because there's a time and a place for it. but really continuing to experiment and also just sharing results and being honest if something didn't totally work. That's okay. We heard from Seth Borko, head of Skift Research this morning, that about three quarters of global travel spend has been influenced by social media.

3:27Absolutely. And like you said, we now have measurement in place, but you also touched on something really interesting right there, which is it's not one size fits all. We heard also that sometimes we're doing things to build trust as a creator and there's not going to be as much of a reach. Sometimes there's going to be a lot of reach, but there's not going to be a lot of sales or engagement in part of it. And you and I were talking, especially with your PR background, my PR background, I'm kind of wondering, is the PR team actually better suited to handle the creator relationships? Because something that we've heard is we need the creators to be able to build stories in a way that's authentic to them, to tell actual stories as opposed to just delivering marketing speak.

4:05What do you think about that? I think that we can continue to evolve how we work with creators. Because I do think there are challenges across the board of like, that head wasn't quite perfect or they said something, but it didn't exactly hit the talking point. I think there needs to be more being okay with their delivering it in their way. As long as the main message got through and is resonating with that audience, it doesn't have to be picture perfect like a brochure was back in the day. And I think having that comfort level depending on who you work with. Some are more open to that than others.

4:42Like you mentioned, I've been on the PR side. I've been on the brand side. I've kind of been everywhere in between. So I'm probably a really good Switzerland of like, how do we do this where both parties are being satisfied, but ultimately is going to drive results because that's what we're here for. Do you guys watch like some of the reels where they have like the late night hosts read like ad script from different people on podcasts. And it's just like, they're talking, they're talking, and we have this, and it's super scripted. And in being in advertising, I know why we have to do that. But I do think there are probably ways that we can allow the script to be more in that voice while still hitting what you need to hit.

5:19Yeah. Sanjay, I imagine you see creators all across the spectrum, high, low, everywhere in between. What's working? What's working and what makes a brand continue to go back to one creator versus always having to find somebody new? Well, I would just echo what Laura was saying around, you know, one of the biggest constraints we see is organizational bottlenecks. So your point of like, who should run this? It's a valid point. I mean, I think a lot of brands are asked themselves that question and are still struggling with it. But my answer would be like, they all have to have a vested interest. And actually the results are forcing, I think, forcing alignment within some of these organizations just because of how strong it's performing.

5:55So I think I'd be interested in Laura's take on like what produces like a very successful brand creator relationship. But I do think the element of building the system, particularly with creator discovery and connection, has actually been very, very difficult in years past. And it still is not easy. But we're building systems. We have a creator marketing hub that we just built, which is specifically designed, has access to 7 million creators across Facebook and Instagram. And it is designed to help brands figure out what are people talking about organically and let them figure out maybe that makes sense for us.

6:28or like what are these engagement metrics and how might they actually translate to what we're trying to accomplish as a brand. So I just, I would argue that like we need to, the platforms need to help the brands in creating systems. You know, we have the ad formats and everything, but like creating that brand to create a connection is very difficult and it's something we can help with. I would love to hear Laura's take on that. Yeah, I'm in hospitality. So I'm in the people business. I love to work with people. I love to hear their stories and connect. I started in PR. I fundamentally want to build relationships and I actually do think some of the strongest creators that I have, there are people that I've been working with since 2017, 2016, because we've built a strong foundation together and there is trust there.

7:08But I approach every new relationship as, I want to make sure this is good for you too. Because if this isn't aligning with your expectations or the creative that you want to put out, that just, you can tell in the creative that that just wasn't a good fit. So I go into every situation of like, this is my expectations. This is what success looks like for me. But I want to hear from you too. Because, and if we decide after it that it didn't work, that's okay. That's totally fine. But I don't want anyone to be frustrated. And so I really try to take a step back and be like, how can I build this relationship?

7:40How can we keep going so it's fruitful for the both of us? And I think it will depend on campaign. But I do have people that I've worked with for many, many years. And I think that's great. But I also want to hear new voices and try new relationships. But it really comes down to the relationship and what success looks like for the both of you. Because if it feels lopsided, you can tell. And I also think even though we might have very extensive briefs, which we're working on, and I know why they need to be there. There are some things that have legal language, FTC, all of that jazz plays into why briefs are maybe longer than a blank page of here, go forth.

8:14I think there's probably wiggle room we can meet in the middle. But even with that, some of the best creators that I work with are still able to take a five-page brief and turn it into something magical. So if you are finding the right person who can tell the story in their own way and still understand what you, as a brand lead, need to get out of it, to me, that's just like. It's helpful for the creator, too, because if we know what success looks like for you, and then you give us that, to give a corporate term, freedom within a framework, to be able to say, how could I hit those points? It's going to be success.

8:47Yes. And we talked a lot, of course, within the summit today about trust, that creators need to build trust with their audience. But what you are showing is equally the brand needs to build trust with the creator and the creator needs to build trust with the brand. Sanjay, if I come back to you, we talked about metrics and the dashboard that you guys are building and that you have in creation. What are you guys seeing as the important metrics? In the past, it was just follower count. Then it was likes. Now we're looking at more views and engagement? Like, what are you seeing that people are paying attention to today?

9:18I mean, I think engagement is key to actually sourcing creators in the right way. So I think there's a set of metrics that are important when any brand is looking at who they should partner with. I don't think it's always follow our account. And maybe it's, you know, who's like actually engaging with their community in interesting ways. Maybe it's, you know, it's families, like family travelers is who you want. Like, how do you actually take more of like a, how do you cut the creator audience to understand like who's resonating with family in this way that matches maybe the brief that is being created.

9:48So there's that. I think when it comes to performance, or like actually once you get the ads running, and you're, again, like the fact that we actually are able to use creator media in ads now is actually another benefit is you get the measurement that comes with paid media. And you couldn't get that a lot of times organically. You couldn't attribute an organic creator post to a booking necessarily. You can through paid media. And so in that world, what we're seeing is like substantial gains in return on ad spend, right? More so than be a business as usual media that do not include creators of UGC to the tune of like, you know, when they're added to business as usual campaigns, a 20 % gain in CPAs.

10:30So they're performing really, really well. Yeah. Across the board. If both of you had to leave us with a final takeaway today, thinking of our audience as people who are in the travel industry, coming from both of your different backgrounds, what would be that one piece of advice that you would give people listening or watching? I think for me, oh, I have so much advice. I don't know, I have to pick just one. Connection's key, right? But also understanding the media plan because creative and media have to go together. And if you don't understand the media, the creative could fall short for no lack of its own other than you didn't know the optimization.

11:06So I do think being collaborative, not only with media, but PR, our brand marketing, et cetera, just makes the work stronger. And I know sometimes that can lead for a lot of discussions, but having those discussions is going to lead to better work and everyone being aligned so you can continue to do more of it. Building the system, plain and simple. I think, you know, Marriott has built the system. Laura's built the system of like, you know, you can start small, but those learnings will compound like cycle on cycle, year on year. And the more learnings you get in this space, which is already a little tricky, the stronger your program is going to be.

11:40every year. So I just think there are a lot of brands I think who are still struggling to build the system. So focusing there, like getting the org aligned, like getting accountability within these different teams to actually look after this strategy or this tactic and then kind of going from there and building it out. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you.