SITUATION

The Greater New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association Hospitality Education Foundation (GNOHLAHEF) exists in part to create awareness of hospitality career paths. Hospitality in Greater New Orleans is a major economic driver in the region, and it continues to grow. This spells opportunity for a growing workforce. However, the Association and its members often point to widely-held negative perceptions about “low wage jobs” in hospitality as a significant challenge to recruitment and retention of employees. Each month jobs go unfilled in New Orleans hotels.

The Hospitality Education Foundation was created to help build a workforce for the sector and provide education around career pathways for a variety of people regardless of background, experience, education or skill set. A job for everyone exists in the sector, and with that job — an opportunity for an enhanced career trajectory and quality of life.

Gambel Communications devised a marketing campaign that featured testimonials from successful employees at area hotels. The campaign was multi-faceted and included outdoor and print advertising, as well as social media marketing. Gambel planned to increase awareness of The Greater New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association and interest in career pathways in the hospitality sector, overcome negative perceptions about careers in hospitality and communicate the wide array of benefits of a career in hospitality.

CAMPAIGN

Gambel worked hand in-hand with GNOHLAHEF to raise awareness for the campaign by creating a landing page that featured an array of GNOHLA’s member’s employees in testimonials about their respective careers, the page acts as the fulfilment to the campaign’s call to action. The look of the page mimics campaign materials and reinforces the message with all 10 testimonial videos and three clickthrough buttons Testimonies included a photo and a brief personal story about the employees. Gambel also used a combination of social media and ads to reach their target audience and negotiated paid placement with media outlets for added value to get the most out of their media buys. As GNOHLA is a nonprofit, Gambel used its nonprofit status to obtain discounted ad rates and packages, or 2-for-1 matching. Finally, Gambel implemented a layered approach of social media and traditional public relations to increase reach which included print advertising in publications available in coffee shops and offices across the city to reinforce the outdoor campaig

RESULT

Since the launch of the landing page on Oct. 1, 2018, the Faces of Hospitality page has received 1,573 pageviews. It is the most-viewed page on GNOHLA’s website. Gambel successfully garnered earned media coverage through interviews on WWL with Newell Normand and Monica Pierre, which directly increased the number of users to 412 (the highest it’s been since the launch). The social media campaign proved essential and all placed Facebook ads reached more than 34,000 people and generated more than 860 link clicks to the Faces of Hospitality landing page. Since placing the ads in Gambit and Beacoup website views grew consistently higher in the weeks after the publication. Additionally, Gambel placed high profile digital junior posters, a series of bus and streetcar shelter placement and a streetcar exterior sign that generated 38, 320 weekly impressions per spot.