Building Brands vs. AI’s Cheap Wins: How Hilton’s CMO Strikes the Balance
Photo Credit: Rainbow Tower Ocean Front View at Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort Hilton
Skift Take
Hotel groups must ensure that short-term performance marketing doesn’t quietly erode brand loyalty, which may be key to unlocking bookings driven by agentic AI.
The rise of AI-powered search and discovery tools creates a tough choice for hotel marketers: Just as brand building may become more important in an age of agentic AI, the rise of AI-based tools may make it tempting for hotels to favor easier-to-measure, short-term tactics.Mark Weinstein, Hilton's chief marketing officer, said AI is speeding up performance marketing. Automated systems can now identify a problem, generate an ad, and place it without human intervention. "You're having a performance result within the same hour," Weinstein said.
But the marketing work that fills rooms NOW (such as flash sales) isn't the same as the work that keeps guests coming back for years (like a memorable brand campaign).
The two disciplines compe
