Behind the Buzz - digital and interactive advertising and marketing

Hilton Be Hospitable

by Rachel on July 20th, 2008

There’s a stereotype about Americans’ abroad which is deserved to some extent (it wouldn’t be a stereotype without some basis in truth). Hilton, who look like they have some sponsorship deal with the US Olympic team, have put together a site to try and bridge some of the cultural gaps, enabling the Games’ visitors and the athletes to understand some of things they’ll find there. The be hospitable Traveller has:

• 30 or so cultural tips so you can avoid offending too many people
• information about how all the sports get started with the Mandarin translations (although this bit does not work for me)
• some common Mandarin phrases, plus lots of useful tourist info about the city
• Lots of video interviews with athletes about travel tips and faux pas
• a ‘get your Chinese name’ tool

What I think

The videos are quite good, especially if you are a fan of the sport, as is the practical information about Beijing and the cultural tips. The rest of the site feels like it’s been added on to make up the numbers. Why a page listing the experts involved? Unless there’s going to be a LOT more travel writing, providing interesting and relevant content, that page does nothing. The choose your Chinese name feels like the creative team were required to add something ‘fun’ to the site and this was the best they came up with (well, at least they didn’t go with a flash game, which is an obvious route). So a good core, but too much that is useless and some wasted opportunities - for a starter, all the video should be embeddable. The only thing that is sharable is the widget to get your Chinese name, which seems like the throwaway fun thing. The email did imply not all of it is live yet, so it may get a lot better.

The Pitch

Another ‘fill in the name’ email. There’s not much more to say about these; over time the language in them has become a lot for casual, moving away from the press release strangulation of the language, but you know you get the mail because I’m on a list somewhere. Yes, I like the information, but I’m honest about why I get the mail.

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POSTED IN: Event Marketing, Marketing in General, US Marketing