• by Larissa Faw , December 16, 2015

This year DoubleTree by Hilton reached the 100,000 room milestone with another 40,000 rooms in the pipeline. And to help drive traffic to these rooms, DoubleTree is teaming with Y&R Chicago and Ketchum to introduce a holiday promotion celebrating Santa Claus.  

The concept is based on the idea that every year, fewer Americans are remembering to leave cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. The hotel chain wants to reverse this decision and is out with a fun video from "Santa" that urges people not to forget about him. In this video message, recorded at “North Pole Studios,” Santa says that DoubleTree’s cookies are “the best,” and warns the public not to end up on his naughty list.

This “public service” video announcement appears on DoubleTree's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts. The hotel chain will continue to introduce additional memes on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during the holiday season. Various posts using #CookiesforSanta will appear through Christmas Eve to encourage people to do their part to make sure Santa gets enough cookies this year to fuel his travels.

In addition, during the week leading up to Christmas, the hotel chain will be inviting anyone to walk into its U.S. hotels - with or without a reservation – for two free cookies to leave for Santa.

The campaign is designed to reinforce the notion that DoubleTree by Hilton is all about the little things that make a big difference when it comes to travel.  

This campaign expands on last year's effort when the hotel chain asked guests via social channels why they thought Santa deserved a tin full of cookies. The top respondents received DoubleTree’s signature holiday cookie tins.