MR C MIAMI, COCONUT GROVE

Mr. C Hotels
Succeeding in a competitive landscape without burning through an excessive campaign budget

The Challenge

Mr C Hotels is a high-end hospitality brand formed by brothers Ignazio and Maggio Cipriani. The Cipriani family is renowned for their restaurants, innovative event spaces, nightlife and residences world-wide. As young travelers visiting the United States from Europe, the fourth generation of Cipriani entrepreneurs found themselves in Florida. They loved it so much they set up the first Mr C Hotel there in 2011 with their flagship, Mr. C Beverly Hills. The Mr C Coconut Grove followed in 2019. Surrounded by breathtaking views of Biscayne Bay and the Miami skyline, this luxury property provides a South Florida oasis for lucky guests.  

Our team provides a range of digital marketing services to Mr. C Hotels on an ongoing basis. As part of our partnership with them, going into 2023, we were tasked with using a range of paid ad and search tools to protect the hotel’s revenue in the face of increased competition. The second half of 2022 had seen several new hotels open in the area. It was clear through competitor analysis that existing hotels also increased traditional and online marketing spend. Potential guests were exposed to a steady rise in TV, video and display commercials by Expedia, Booking.com, Travago, Priceline and others offering ever increasing levels of choice. By the end of 2022, it became clear a change in strategy for 2023 was required. 

Change in The Face of Competition 

The management team at Coconut Grove were conscious of competition eating into their market share and the negative impact this could have on bookings and revenue. As a result, they tasked us with protecting the revenue earned from their digital advertising spend. Given the double threat from new hotels in the area and aggressive marketing from existing competition, they did not specify a growth target. Our instruction was relatively straightforward. They asked our campaign team to rethink the 2023 strategy to avoid returning a drop in revenue compared to 2022.  As a result, they hoped to maintain year on year growth even if it was by a relatively small margin. 

Our main constraint was a limited spend. The budget Mr C Hotels allocated for 2023 was only 5% higher than it had been for 2022. This anticipated a reduction in demand based on the likely impact of competitors. It meant, in effect, we had to do more with less than we hoped. Maintaining current performance was paramount and, as a result, the client also asked us to avoid new marketing channels for the first half of 2023 at least. Their appetite to try new things and risk failure was limited. We, of course, still kept our eye out for trends and opportunities in hospitality digital spaces and made recommendations for new activities in the second half of the year. 

Based on the above set of circumstances, we amended our strategy and ran a series of new creative paid digital ad and search campaigns promoting the Coconut Grove hotel throughout 2023. We took care, at every stage, to fulfil our client’s requirements and work within their constraints. As with all our projects, we shared data on our performance openly and honestly throughout delivery. The good news is that, despite initial caution, the results outperformed expectations by a welcome margin.

RESULTS

83% More Traffic

Generating $546k+ of revenue and a ROAS of 15:1

Despite a small 5% uplift in spend, we enjoyed almost double the number of campaign clicks year on year. Campaign CPCs fell by 23% over the same period.

The Outcome  

Any digital marketing strategy has to be judged, ultimately, on its financial performance. In the case of the Mr C Coconut Grove hotel, our 2023 campaigns netted $546,113 in revenue. This represented a 52% year on year increase. This was achieved despite a modest 5% increase in budget to spend compared to 2022. Success came from a desire to stand out in an environment that was becoming increasingly crowded thanks to new hotels in the locality and the aggressive expansion of Online Travel Agents (OTAs).  Attempting to outspend the OTAs would prove incredibly costly with no guarantee of success.  Instead, our team worked hard to win precious online market share through compelling messaging and carefully considered strategic placement. 

Overall, the entire Mr C Coconut Grove Hotel account’s revenue increased by 43% compared to 2022. A ROAS of 15.4:1 represented a 36% improvement year on year.   This is a remarkable result given we were given no specific growth target. We were expected to merely keep revenue stable in the face of competing awareness campaigns. We rarely settle for the status quo and so aimed to achieve more than that. Our impressive campaign results demonstrate that it is not always necessary to spend to win market share. A well thought-through and implemented campaign can pay off and lead to significant rewards.