Marketers are starting to take advantage of information available to them and instead of doing blanket vanilla marketing for everyone, they are starting to tell more relevant stories based on what they know about their audience.
Recently I was on a trip to one of our offices and stayed at the W Hotel in Hollywood, California. If you have stayed there or visited, you know the area has all sorts of arts, a strong night scene in and around the hotel (and general area), and is surrounded by the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the sidewalk showing “stars” from all generations.
The W itself describes the area as the following:
You can find our chic boutique W Hollywood hotel at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, under the shadow of the iconic Hollywood sign. Take a stroll down the Hollywood Walk of Fame located outside our front door.
Shine like a star at our W Hotel in Hollywood, where you take center stage. Indulge in fabulous Hollywood restaurants at Delphine, then take the lift upstairs and splash around in our rooftop pool, WET. Soak up the celebrity scene and then wind down in the comfort of our wow-worthy luxury rooms.
This area works hard to attract a certain type of client. And a certain type of client is attracted to and goes out in this area. To be clear, I am out of the demo (I think), but a more normal hotel was sold out.
Upon arriving I noticed the entire area was packed, the hotel bar was full, and there were all sorts of people meeting up, having drinks, and heading out. As I was checking in I opened up my Uber app (town car service on demand) to get a receipt and was surprised to see the following promotion and offer.
While I didn’t immediately call three friends to jump in and head to Vegas for the night, I found it really interesting for a few reasons. Let’s break down why this may be an interesting targeting story/idea:
My hopes are that all of this is very intentional and that depending on what part of town, what time, what Uber knows about me – all of those things determined what offer I got. It is exciting to me that marketers may be starting to take advantage of the information available to them and instead of doing blanket vanilla marketing for everyone that they are starting to tell more relevant stories based on what they know about their audience.
All of the things outlined above are smart and possible. My fear is that it may not be as intentional or targeted as I am hoping. But in my opinion, this is where it is going.
Marketers would be wise to think about what Uber and The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas are doing here (or appear to be doing) and think about how they can think differently about how they are marketing, targeting, and tailoring messages, offers, etc. that are much more relevant to their target audience.
I personally am looking forward to the time when these types of offers are targeted (intentionally) to what excites, motivates, and matters to me. What other examples have you seen where location may play an important role in key offerings? Please share them in the comments.
