Marriott Rewards Snap Ads Long-Form Video hooked young travelers

Marriott Rewards is one of the most well-known loyalty programs in the world. But when it came to younger travel-loving audiences (Adults 21+), it sought a stronger connection. With a swarm of young travelers on the platform, effective targeting to reach them, and easy-to-use creative solutions, Snapchat proved to be the perfect partner for Marriott Rewards’ youth movement. The result was “Six Days, Seven Nights,” a Snapchat-exclusive video series following four social media influencers as they explored different cities around the world. If Marriott Rewards could get Snapchatters to watch the videos, it could drive the lift in awareness and consideration among young travelers it was looking for.

To get Snapchatters to swipe up on the videos, Marriott Rewards crafted a Snap Ads Long-Form Video campaign with multiple Top Snaps, optimizing for those that drove the most swipe ups. It followed creative best practices like keeping 
Top Snaps under 10 seconds, presenting the 
brand in the very first frames, and appealing to Snapchatters with both verbal and visual CTAs to “swipe up” on the videos. 

While the Top Snaps drove strong swipe up 
rates, the campaign delivered especially strong engagement, with the long-form videos enjoying an average play time of 39-seconds. That meant Snapchatters opted to watch a branded video experience for longer than most auto-play, 
pre-roll video ads last. Why? The videos spoke
 to them in a language they were already familiar with on Snapchat: organic, user-generated 
content in a vertical, full screen format, briskly-paced editing, and fun creative additions like emojis, patterns and captions. Experimenting 
with targeting paid off, too. Marriott Rewards 
found the most engaged audience for the series 
by optimizing their campaign to bid on travel audiences who were more likely to swipe up 
on the ads.