This short film is content marketing on steroids

Marriott’s killing the content marketing game

What’s going on here

Late last week Marriott released ‘Two Bellmen Three’, the third and latest instalment in its short film series. The action short is set in Seoul, South Korea, around the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square Seoul.

The short was produced by Substance Over Hype production studio, with an estimated budget of $500,000 and has already garnered millions of views online. The short film series has proved to be one of the more successful attempts at content marketing in recent history. The series has racked up over 15 million views on youtube alone!

What does this mean

Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of online or offline material such as videos, blogs, and social media posts. Great content marketing does not explicitly promote a brand but rather aims to provide value in some way to people.

The film does well at showing off the Marriott brand in a creative and unique way, without being sleazy. In his piece on the story, Greg Oates writes, “Marriott’s Content Studio developed a storyline around a young Korean wedding couple, no-nonsense parents, parkour, and K-pop to engage the Asian romance travel market”.

However, the main business case for the film is to take the data captured from the millions of views it has and use that data to retarget people who watched it with other forms of marketing. This tactic is called Remarketing.

Why should I care?

“Because it is relatively new, most universities don’t teach the topic with sufficient depth.”

For the industry

Content marketing is an example of an inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people towards a company or product. When done right, inbound marketing can provide more ROI than traditional outbound marketing techniques like advertising, especially with ‘millennials’ who don’t watch as much traditional TV.

Inbound marketing recently rose to prominence in the last decade thanks in part to the rise of the internet, as it allowed businesses to distribute their content directly to people more easily.

Inbound marketing brought with it new types of marketing jobs that didn’t exist decades ago. Like content marketer, Email marketer and Social-media marketer. Because these marketing techniques are relatively new, most universities don’t teach the topics with sufficient depth. But you can learn a lot about them on Buffer, Hubspot and CMI’s blog.

For you, personally.

Shortly before I started writing, I watched the film and… it’s actually really entertaining! No really, it’s a great blend of parkour, music, wedding bells and action, with comedic undertones.

😂😂😂😂😂

— Me, while watching the film.

It’s definitely better than a low-budget feature length film and it looks like something you would see at a movie festival rather than being branded content for a business. I definitely recommend watching it. If nothing else but to see what great content marketing looks like.

Dear Marketing StudenT was created by Ayo Afolabi. Click here to find out why he created it. If you like this post give it a 💚 and share! :) If you want to get in touch with us, drop us a line at Hello@dearmarketingstudent.com