• by Tanya Gazdik , June 30, 2015

Loews Hotels’ first campaign in two years features photos posted to social media by actual guests.

The hotel group has discarded focus groups, camera crews and models . Working with agency Catch New York, Loews went searching through the social media posts of thousands of guests (notably Instagram), looking for photos posted on Loews properties for their new campaign, #TravelForReal.

Two years ago, Loews' "The Room You Need" campaign told the story through their guests. Now, they are letting the guests tell the stories themselves, a first for the hospitality industry, according to Loews Hotels & Resorts CMO Bruce Himelstein.

“What better way is there to tell the story of our hotels than real images captured by our guests,” Himelstein says. “The images they take during their stay convey their actual thoughts, feelings and experiences, allowing us to show future guests what it’s really like to stay at Loews Hotels & Resorts.”

The ads, which will be used in brochures and all kinds of collateral itself, draw from actual Instagram photos taken on Loews properties: a young banjo player in Nashville, a kid relaxing next to Portofino Bay swimming pool with cucumbers on his eyes, a gay Midwestern wedding are just three of them.

The campaign breaks today in summer issues of Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit, Architectural Digest, and WIRED (all Conde Nast), as well as digital banners and airport OOH. The initial print phase is for the remainder of 2015. However this campaign will extend into 2016, Himelstein.says.

“Loews Hotels has used, and continues to use print to further establish awareness of the brand as it rapidly grows in the marketplace,” Himelstein tells Marketing Daily.

The magazine selection will result in the hotel reaching a “diverse range of Loews guests,” he adds.

“We target both ‘transient’ and ‘group’ guests that we've defined as the ‘self-determined,’" he says. “Another way of looking at this is: very frequent travelers, open to risk, entrepreneurial, with diverse life ambitions.”

The campaign will also have digital weight, along with targeted digital outdoor, local media, and a strong internal communications presence, Himelstein says. There is currently no video or TV planned.