Adrian Award Winners Were Honored at the HSMAI Adrian Awards Gala Feb. 23, 2015, in New York City

NEW YORK CITY, NY (February 25, 2015) – GCommerce, a hospitality digital marketing firm, in collaboration with their client Coast Hotels, was awarded the top Adrian Award available for digital marketing, a Platinum level award. Presented by the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and recognizing outstanding work in digital marketing for the hotel and lodging industry, the Adrian Award competition is the largest and most prestigious annual travel marketing competition worldwide. This year’s competition attracted more than 1,200 entries from around the globe, which were judged by top executives and marketing experts from the hospitality sector. In addition to winning a Platinum level award, GCommerce won a Gold award and two Silver awards. The four awards included:

Platinum Award

Coast Hotels Great Coast Road Trip – Social Media Campaign

Coast Hotels is a collection of unique hotels throughout the US and Canada. Rather than duplicating the same look and feel from property to property, the portfolio prides itself on providing truly authentic experiences at each of its locations. In the spring of 2013, Coast Hotels rebranded and established a new brand position-refreshingly local. Embracing the communities in which they do business, Coast Hotels differentiated themselves from competitors by showing their involvement with local events, history, culture, community, and geographic locations. In an effort to promote the new brand position, further engage with local communities, and highlight an array of their unique properties within the brand, GCommerce and Coast Hotels launched a social media campaign entitled, ‘The Great Coast Road Trip’. Over a span of 35 days, the campaign followed 8 travel bloggers across 2,650 miles and 21 hotels while highlighting refreshingly local aspects of Coast Hotels’ locations along the way. The campaign was highly successful with a 26% YOY growth in online direct revenue referred from social media.

Gold Award

Principal Hayley Website Launch – Email Campaign

Principal Hayley (PH) Hotels launched a new website and brand image in September 2013. As a collection of 23 truly individual hotels and conference and event venues across the UK and Europe, PH Hotels aspired to develop a web presence that spoke more to the unique character and experience of their brand. Once the new website design process was completed, PH Hotels wanted to announce the new website to their customer base with an email. This email campaign not only introduced PH Hotels’ new branding but also showcased their unique properties and encouraged customers to book another stay at one of their hotels to re-experience their brand. This email campaign’s goal was to mimic the design of the new website and showcase the unique attributes of the individual properties that make up the PH Hotels brand. In order to achieve this, a unique animated gif was created as a replica of the scrolling image header on the website. Immediate impact of the email was a 23% YOY increase in traffic to the website.

Silver Award

Principal Hayley Website Launch – Website

PH Hotels asked GCommerce to create a new digital presence for the brand and its 23 hotels, spanning desktop, tablet and mobile environments. The new websites are exceptionally effective and include cutting edge technology that offers the ability to feature dynamic content based on geographic location of the user. Each hotel has the ability to deliver specific messaging to their target audiences with special offers that are only seen in that particular geographical location. PH Hotels sites launched in September 2013 and experiencecd a 541% increase in revenue produced through the brand site compared to the previous year.

Silver Award

Lenox Hotel Celebrates Local – Social Media Campaign

As a hotel, a neighbor and a corporate citizen, The Lenox is recognized as a global sustainability leader and pioneer of ecotourism. This is an honor that The Lenox tirelessly strives to maintain and improve upon by researching new ways to reduce their impact on the environment. In the summer of 2013 The Lenox welcomed 120,000 new long-term residents to the hotel: a colony of bees. The bees were introduced to produce honey to be used in recipes in the hotel’s restaurants and cocktail lounge, including a signature drink, ‘The Queen Bee Cocktail’. In conjunction with the first honey harvest taking place in the fall of 2013, The Lenox decided to launch a Facebook campaign to celebrate the arrival of the bees and promote learning and local initiatives taking place around the property. The primary objectives of the Facebook campaign were to generate excitement and awareness of the new resident bees, build The Lenox’s reputation as an information resource for local events and green initiatives, increase The Lenox’s Facebook fan base, and to grow The Lenox’s email database, all of which were achieved. In addition, the Facebook campaign increased awareness of the local seasonal ingredients The Lenox’s restaurants, generated awareness for the beekeeping program, and helped to further establish The Lenox as a local resource.

Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) paid tribute to GCommerce and Coast Hotels during the annual HSMAI Adrian Awards Gala. The Gala is a black-tie affair attended by more than 2,000 hospitality, travel and tourism marketing executives at the New York Marriott Marquis on February 23, 2015.

“We are continually amazed by the creativity of the Adrian Award submissions,” said Fran Brasseux, HSMAI executive vice president. “We saw imaginative campaigns that got results in all categories, and we’re excited about honoring this year’s Adrian Award winners in February.”

GCommerce continues to live up to their reputation as an innovator and thought leader by accepting this valued prize. “I believe this award is validation that when GCommerce partners with great clients, we can and do produce work that sets the standard for the industry” says Chris Jackson, President of GCommerce Solutions.

All winning entries are accessible in the Adrian Awards Winners Gallery online following the gala at www.adrianawards.com.