Exploring the UK's Best-Kept Secrets with Premier Inn, in Partnership with The Guardian.

Issue
Building the brand beyond TV adverts. Our task was to maintain the summer buzz by creating a campaign that not only increased brand awareness but also showcased the breadth and variety of our hotel offering. 

Insight
Premier Inn are everywhere and all over UK. In all the big cities and all the popular places, hotspots and areas. But people are often looking for something different. Something or somewhere off the beaten track, something unique. By tapping into the feeling you get when you uncover a hidden treasure, we can enhance our guests’ travelling experience and bring out their sense of adventure. Premier Inn can be a facilitator of this with our over 750 hotels across the UK. 

Idea
Aligning with the popular UK publication The Guardian, an award-winning film location scout and three key social media influencers, we would lead conversations and comms around the topic of UK’s top Hidden Treasures - destinations that are lesser-known than larger, more popular ones.

Location scout Tom Howard shared his top hidden treasure destinations found through his work, coupled with a link to the nearest Premier Inn hotel. A content hub was created to live on site for these top 10 treasures, promoted on both organic and paid social.

Our partnership with The Guardian led to a creation of a variety of digital content - articles, listicles, galleries, traffic drivers, social posts and roadblock banners - encouraging discovery of the best hidden treasures across the UK, hosted on a dedicated hub on Guardian site. Content included articles on the best adventure holidays and alternative holiday destinations as well as the UK’s best beaches, mysterious sites and unique gardens.

Our three partner influencers stayed in our hotels exploring the local treasures on offer, creating curated Instagram posts and blog posts for their loyal audience. Key posts were boosted with organic and paid social in addition to promotion of Tom Howard’s top 10 treasures.

Impact
The Guardian content had great engagement, achieving a higher dwell time than the publication’s usual benchmark for promoted content and high click-through rates for our roadblock banners resulting in bookings despite being an awareness campaign.

https://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/short-breaks/hidden-treasures.html