Skift Take

Content marketing is a major opportunity for brands to gain an audience outside of their specific product, but Fairfield Inn's message veers too far away from its customer base for the project to gain traction.

Samantha Shankman, Skift

Fairfield Inn & Suites is reaching out to millennials with a career-oriented campaign aimed at celebrating innovators and their mentors.

The campaign both celebrates young entrepreneurs and turns to social media to crowdsource additional career advice.

Four featured mentors, all founders found on Forbes 30 Under 30 list, share 30-second commencement speeches, participate in interviews, and share what they’ve learned from their own mentors.

Most of the information is relevant to new graduates just starting down their career path.

Fairfield is also seeking out advice from its Twitter followers and entering respondents in a contest for a free trip to New York City.

Each week Fairfield Inn asks questions like “What is your best tip for recent grads?” or “What did you wish you knew before your first interview.”

Responses so far have been weak and not attracted the star-studded advice that would be needed to get this campaign off the ground.

Each tweet has received fewer than a dozen responses.

Marriott’s business travel brand says the campaign aims to “help business travelers maintain momentum and achieve success while on the road,” but the message applies more to guests tagging along with their parents after graduation than the actual guests themselves.

You could argue it’s never too early to gain brand awareness with young soon-to-be business travelers.

Here are two of the 30-second commencement speeches shared as part of the campaign.

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Samantha Shankman, Skift

June 18th, 2014 at 11:05 AM EDT

Tags: marriott, social media

Photo credit: Kane Sarhan is founder of Enstitute and one of the program ambassadors for Everyday Connect. Fairfield Inn & Suites / YouTube

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