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Marriott Rewards × NCAA: Sponsorship Playbook·2017–18
- Integrated Marketing
- Partnerships & Sponsorships
- Loyalty & Customer Engagement
Turning a sponsorship into a playbook, and running it twice.
Marriott Rewards’ first two NCAA seasons connected sponsorship rights, real-time content, on-site activation and audience targeting, then used year-one learning to make year two smarter.
What I built
From the announcement tweet on March 2, 2017 through the Final Four in Phoenix, I built the engagement plan: on-site activations, audience targeting and retargeting, RT-to-win mechanics, and a Snapchat geofilter piloted at the Final Four. Year two ran the same playbook in San Antonio with a year of data behind it. I worked out of M Live, Marriott’s real-time command center, which that June won Gold and Silver Creative Data Lions at Cannes with its listening partner.
What changed
A sponsorship turned into a two-year social playbook.
Year one built the engagement plan from the announcement through the Final Four: on-site activation, audience targeting and retargeting, RT-to-win mechanics and a Snapchat geofilter at the Final Four. Year two ran the same plan in San Antonio with a season of data behind it.
A Snapchat geofilter, piloted properly.
Piloted at the Final Four in Phoenix as one line in a larger plan, not the centerpiece — the same discipline the Capital One team had used the year before, and one I carried to Stand Together.
Snapchat geofilter pilot, Final Four
Other program figures are Marriott’s and are not published here.
My role
Manager, Digital Marketing — The Americas (2017–18).
Built with
The Marriott Rewards brand and sponsorship teams, who owned the rights and the promotions; M Live, whose listening and content teams ran the real-time layer with me; the field marketing teams on site in Phoenix and San Antonio.