Problem Solved: Reinventing Marriott Bonvoy's Boundless Card with Rose 'the Fixer' Bush

Rose Bush is a group account director at Quigley, a fully-integrated brand performance agency that is setting the standard for performance marketing with its

'Brand-Led, Demand Driven' philosophy. With over 15 years of brand development and account management experience, Rose has been called 'the Fixer' based on her strategic problem-solving abilities. Rose is best known at Quigley for her strong integrated campaign leadership, multi-media production experience, and brand stewardship. Specialising in financial services, consumer packaged goods, tourism, and museum categories, Rose knows how to fix a problem, improve client relationships, grow a business, and add value to a strong team.

What You Made

One of my roles at Quigley is working to promote the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card, a travel-related credit card. When covid quarantine put much of the travel industry on hold, we needed to rethink our strategy for reaching consumers interested in travel rewards. Although physical travel had paused, we saw an opportunity for the brand to continue to bring the joy of travel to consumers by planning for the future. We designed a travel planning program to raise brand awareness, inspire wanderlust, and earn consumer goodwill for the long term.

The Problem

Our initial problem was to keep the brand top of mind even though no one could travel at the time and the future was uncertain. We needed a new way to tap into consumers' excitement and interest in seeing the world. With real travel on hold, we were looking for other ways to satisfy consumers’ wanderlust.  

Our worlds got smaller during the pandemic. We commuted only as far as the other room, events were cancelled, travel was limited, and daily outings became walking around the block. But one thing remained true during those long, difficult months spent close to home: it’s essential for our well-being to have something to look forward to. We found research confirming that it’s not just travel but the anticipation of travel that motivates consumers.

Ideation

Our first step was determining how to make consumers aware of the real psychological benefits of planning a trip, even if it couldn’t happen immediately. Then we needed them to understand the continued value of our credit card without appearing overly transactional.

We looked at several ways to promote travel planning and landed on an editorial approach that would provide insights to consumers about the benefits of travel planning and lend gravitas to the research. In 2021, as our lives started to open up again and travel became a safer possibility, we entered a new phase of our campaign, anchored by a new partner, TheAtlantic.com, a well-respected media outlet known for its journalistic and literary prowess.

Live

This project was based on existing research and interviews conducted with experts about the psychological benefits of travel planning. In one study, seventy-one percent of consumers felt an increase in their positivity when they planned a trip within the next six months. In addition, seventy-four percent of those surveyed felt planning made them feel more in control amid the year’s uncertainty (Institute for Applied Positive Research, 2020). This information helped us shift gears by taking a newer approach focused on the future.

We interviewed experts on the psychological benefits of travel planning, reflected on the toll that covid-19 had taken, and offered an emotional salve to eager travellers.

The resulting article, 'Imagining Elsewhere,' included custom illustrations and served as an anchor for our story series. Its custom landing page linked to the two interactive pieces: a weekend getaway map, 'The World Around the Corner,' and a vacation generator, 'The Case for Getting Away.' Both suggested the need to plan short and long-term vacations to reap the benefits explored in the article.

The map and vacation generator were also cross-linked, so users could easily navigate between all three pieces and intuitively discover the complete package of stories, no matter which individual element they arrived at first. Research shows that people are happier when they experience a greater variety of physical locations in their daily routines. Even short vacations can decrease stress and increase overall well-being.

The World Around the Corner map offered shorter, closer-to-home ideas for weekend getaways that people could take right away while waiting for pandemic travel restrictions to be lifted. We created three maps that featured distinct geographic regions of the country, each based around one Marriott Bonvoy-eligible hotel. The maps featured select nearby points of interest, focusing on unexpected outdoor attractions for covid-19 safety.

There’s also a strong case for getting far from home and experiencing something novel: A study found that those who travelled at least 75 miles away from home on vacation reported a seven percent increase in their overall happiness. Travel opens your mind and can boost creativity; it’s also linked to increased cultural intelligence and emotional agility.

The Case for Getting Away was our vacation generator which focused on the benefits of getting far afield from one’s home. It operated as a quiz, but not what one typically imagines as an online quiz experience. It took an editorial approach to provide readers with accurate, surprising insights about travel and suggest the kind of vacation they should book based on their answers. Treating the quiz’s final output as a story that offered historical and cultural insights specific to that reader’s answers allowed visitors to imagine all of their vacation options without the quiz appearing overly transactional. Following the quiz output, we also recommended Marriott Bonvoy properties that suited their vacation recommendation.

The data-driven results of our project exceeded our goals and benchmarks tremendously. We over-delivered on our key performance indicators, including page views, UVM, and engagement. But, I’m most proud of how the program gave readers a real reason to dream of travel again.