Dive Brief:

• Choice Hotels International has launched its first-ever TikTok marketing campaign, the company announced in a release obtained by Hotel Dive. 
• The campaign, which sees the company partner with influencer Jimmy Darts to give away two trips to Florida and Texas, spotlights the Comfort and Cambria brands. 
• The campaign targets millennials as a primary audience, with Gen Z as a secondary focus, to expand brand awareness, Chief Marketing Officer Noha Abdalla told Hotel Dive. The TikTok campaign builds upon Choice’s recently launched multichannel campaign, "A Stay for Any You."

Dive Insight:

Darts’ feel-good content often sees the influencer give cash gifts to people in need. Darts has 12 million followers on TikTok and over 23 million followers across his social platforms. 

In his partnership with Choice, Darts gave away two Choice-sponsored vacations: one to Orlando, Florida, to a family that hadn’t traveled in nine years, and another to Austin, Texas, to a waitress who had never been on a plane. Both parties received a three-night stay at a Choice hotel and $7,500 in travel expenses — an amount chosen to reflect the 7,500 Choice hotels worldwide. 

The campaign features the midscale Comfort and upscale Cambria Hotels brands, specifically. The goal of the campaign, Abdalla said, is “to increase awareness with younger travelers on TikTok that Choice has the perfect hotel for every trip and budget." 

“Our partnership with Jimmy Darts on TikTok serves as a powerful tool to engage both [millennial and Gen Z] demographics, as TikTok is widely popular among these generations,” Abdalla said.

The TikTok push builds upon the company’s largest marketing campaign to date, which debuted in January. Choice designed “A Stay for Any You” to highlight Choice’s growing presence in the upscale segment, which includes the growing Cambria Hotels brand. 

“This is an opportunity for us to help our guests understand the range and breadth of our portfolio and help shift their perception from thinking that Choice Hotels is more of a midscale hotel company to thinking Choice has a portfolio of hotel brands that has a stay that’s right for any version of them,” Abdalla said at the time of the campaign’s launch. 

Though Choice is expanding its presence in the upscale segment, it remains “committed as ever” to its core brands, Chief Segment and International Operations Officer Raul Ramirez said in a statement yesterday upon the company’s appointment of Judd Wadholm, a new general manager of core brands. 

Hilton has also made TikTok pushes in a bid to attract younger guests as part of its “For the Stay” marketing platform, including a 10-minute TikTok starring Paris Hilton.