Skift Take
Hilton led in TV ad spending last year, despite more ad dollars migrating to streaming platforms. One factor is that supply is oddly going down.
Hotel brand marketers continued last year to buy commercials on old-fashioned broadcast TV — especially for live sports events, award shows, and TV news — despite more attention shifting to streaming platforms.
Hotel groups spent $173 million on national TV ads last year, according to data estimates by iSpot, a TV measurement company.
Hilton led the pack of hotel brand marketers by a wide margin. It spent $58.5 million on TV ads last year. It was one of the top 150 advertisers spending on national TV of all kinds of companies. In some months, it had as many as 6,000 airings for its roughly 80 ads.
Hotel Brand Spending on U.S. National TV Ads in 2023
| Ranking | Hotel Brand or Family of Brands | TV Ad Spend, millions | % change year-over-year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hilton (family of brands) | $58.5 | -0.8% |
| 2 | Choice Hotels (family) | $31.7 | -20.9% |
| 3 | Courtyard by Marriott | $22.4 | 249.7% |
| 4 | Marriott (family) | $15.7 | -45.5% |
| 5 | Wyndham (family) | $14.8 | 16453.0% |
| 6 | IHG (family) | $9.4 | -24.3% |
| 7 | Best Western | $7.6 | -10.4% |
| 8 | SpringHill Suites by Marriott | $4.6 | new in 2023 |
| 9 | Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos | $2.4 | 249.0% |
| 10 | Fontainebleau | $2.4 | new in 2023 |
Marriott was the next largest spender by hotel group. But it spread out its spending across a mix of promotions of its loyalty program and spotlights on individual brands, like Autograph Collection, W Hotels, and Westin. It separately ran dedicated brand awareness blitzes for its Courtyard brand and a new-in-2023 campaign for SpringHill Suites.
The biggest new entrant last year was Wyndham, which spent an estimated $14.8 million on TV ads. That spend was a big jump for the group, which had only spent about $89,000 in 2022.
Wyndham launched several TV commercials, including a 30-second ‘Your Wyndham Is Waiting: Work Trips’ and an ad promoting how guests at a handful of Days Inn by Wyndham properties would get to use in-room mirrors that compliment the guests at the push of a button.
Hotel Brand Bets on TV
Some hoteliers are spending more despite a trend in shrinking audiences for linear — or cable and broadcast — programming. One reason is that the recent screenwriter’s strike led to less original programming and, thus, less coveted ad inventory — driving up rates.
Live sports, concerts, and events remain coveted spots for putting a message in front of the eyes of certain demographic targets that my be becoming more elusive to track in a digital era.
IHG sees TV ads as amplifying messaging it sends via other mediums. It has continued to run two thematically linked groups of national TV ads. Its ‘Guest How You Guest’ platform aims to remind the audience of IHG’s portfolio of brands and how a common theme of the properties is that guests should “feel free to show up as themselves and live their best lives. It debuted in 2022 and is still live globally.
IHG’s ‘Travel Like You Mean It’ TV and outdoor ads spotlight its luxury and lifestyle hotels. It launched three years ago and remains live in the U.S., Britain, the UAE, and Saudi with a mix of connected TV, digital display (in places like subways) and paid ads on social media apps.
The latest ‘Travel Like You Mean It’ debuted this month:
Have a confidential tip for Skift? Get in touch
Tags: advertisements, advertising, advertising campaign, branded advertising, hilton, ispot.tv, Travel Advertising, tv, wyndham, wyndham hotel group, Wyndham hotels
Photo credit: A still image from a hotel lobby for the Hilton "For the Stay" TV campaign that ran in 2022 and 2023. Source: Hilton