Continuing the development and deployment of Marriott International, Inc.’s recently announced Marriott Global Content Studio (MCS), the company has announced several new production and development deals feeding its global content pipeline.
Jordan Farmar and Ryan Hicks from A Year of Surprises
- A co-production deal with startup Naritiv (launched out of the Disney Accelerator program powered by Techstars) to develop interactive travel stories on Snapchat with several influencers including Casey Neistat and Mike Platco.
- An exclusive production deal with Jack Harries, co-creator of the popular YouTube channel, JacksGap, to develop three short films.
- A development deal with producers Ian Sander and Kim Moses of Sander/Moses Productions & SLAM to develop a scripted, narrative digital drama project together with Marriott Content Studios.
- The premiere of Marriott Rewards’ Year of Surprises—today: a series of monthly webisodes each featuring a celebrity host helping deliver the surprise of a lifetime to deserving community
members.
The Marriott’ Content Studio is dedicated to publishing, distributing and sharing digital content across multiple platforms across all screen and in print. To further the company’s focus on next-generation travelers and drive new business, the studio aims to own original content marketing as both a travel company and a worldwide community.
“Our goal is to produce engaging content that builds communities of people passionate about travel that will drive commerce,” explains David Beebe, vice president, creative + content marketing, global marketing. ”Following our initial announcement last month, we have moved rapidly to engage development and production partners, get into physical production and begin to deliver content to our consumers. These deals expand both the depth of our content play as well as its breadth, by reaching into a new content area where few brands—and no other hospitality brands—have ventured before as activate and leverage global reach and distribution to become the leading publisher of travel lifestyle content that engages next generation travelers.”
Naritiv
First among Marriott’s content deals is an unprecedented move for the industry: partnering with Snapchat-focused marketing & analytics platform Naritiv to develop an interactive series on Snapchat featuring creators like Casey Neistat and Mike Platco. The interactive series will support the Travel Brilliantly campaign for the company’s flagship Marriott Hotels, making it the first major hospitality brand on Snapchat to develop interactive stories. Snapchat represents a new frontier for branded programming or programming of any kind. However, the strongest growth in the burgeoning social media app is in the “Stories” feature of the app, where influencers create daily, raw video snippets of their experiences.
Naritiv CEO Daniel Altmann explains, “Collaborating with Marriott Hotels represents a new step forward in programming on this platform. Users show their lives and tell their stories through Snapchat in a way social media did in its earlier days: candidly and spontaneously, yet serially. Each day tells a story. Snapchat thoroughly captures users’ attention for that moment they look at the Snaps and then capture and share them. People follow and connect with creators we work with in a special way, and we’re excited for them to be engaging Marriott’s audience in a new way as well.”
JacksGap: Jack Harries
MCS has also signed an exclusive development deal with JacksGap, a YouTube channel and digital project described by co-creator Jack Harries as a channel “born from a love of travelling and telling a good story. [Our] aim is to document the world around us by creating content that engages and inspires others.” The Marriott Content Studio and JacksGap are co-developing an inspired series of three short films on travel through a global lens, featuring destinations from among the 78 countries where Marriott International’s portfolio of brands are located. Based in London, Jack and Finn’s JacksGap channel on YouTube, www.youtube.com/jacksgap, has over 3.8 million subscribers a combined 151 million views; they have 3 million followers on Instagram.
Sander/Moses Productions & SLAM
Producers Ian Sander and Kim Moses of Sander/Moses Productions/SLAM have inked a deal with MCS to develop a branded digital project together (http://www.sandermoses.com/whoweare). “In an ever-changing world of content creation and 21st century global interconnection it is really exciting to be teaming up with a premium travel brand like Marriott in the digital content space” said Ian Sander of Sander/Moses Productions/SLAM. Sander/Moses have an astonishing eleven TV series (including Ghost Whisperer and Profiler) four feature films (including D.O.A.), and dozens of digital projects to their credit.
Year of Surprises
Marriott Rewards’ Year of Surprises is a series of monthly webisodes each featuring a celebrity host helping deliver the surprise of a lifetime to deserving community members. The first webisode premieres on October 31 on YouTube. Basketball star Jordan Farmar hosts the first episode, honoring Ryan Hicks of “Ballin’ for Peace” http://www.ballinforpeace.org, whose goal is to “Inspire, educate, and empower people from all walks of life through recreation, entertainment and practical life skills development.” Marriott’s ordered fifteen episodes, seeing the series through December 2015. Preview the first episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHZHfgzScS0
