Title	STARWOOD ASTRA, IMPROVING STARWOOD'S INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Brand	STARWOOD HOTELS AND RESORTS
Product/Service	B2B HOTELS AND RESORTS
Category	B03. Use of Other Digital Platforms
Entrant Company	EMAKINA Brussels, BELGIUM
Advertising Agency	EMAKINA Brussels, BELGIUM

Name	Company	Position
Sharon Denness	Emakina	Account Manager
Aline Vanliefland	Emakina	Project Manager
Josi Swerts	Emakina	Project Manager
Alexandre Gilmart	Emakina	Art Director
Vincent Wautier	Emakina	Designer
Serge Lecomte	Emakina	Integrator
Maxime Verleye	Emakina	Integrator
Sébastien Piraux	Emakina	Development
Jeroen Meeus	Emakina	Development
Vincent Leruitte	Emakina	Development
Jean Durand	Emakina	CRM

Brief Explanation

Starwood Hotels and Resorts wanted to break the time and energy consuming ‘Email Communication overload’ for its General Managers and Directors. Our challenge: streamline, to maximize synergy in content and distribution. To continue the success of the group, General Managers and Directors and the staff of all brands must stay updated on new products and services, activities and opportunities. In this context, standardized, consolidated sharing of news, allowing customized contact, is the best way to fight massive loss of time, energy and motivation. And it creates more time to support the hotel teams and general managers.

Results and Effectiveness

We surpassed all KPI’s • Parallel newsletters and mails of 20 teams was ended • Economy of +500 separate wide-audience distributions • + 99% Newsletter e-mail opening rate • 50% organic reader’s base growth • 4.000 platform visits • 6 minutes average time spend • 40% visits through mobile • Astra is the main internal platform for +80% of departments

Creative Execution

The key idea was that we could integrate the specific needs of the EAME division, having to reach many different target audiences with one unified and visually appealing tool. Part of the creative solution is the smart combination of setting up an easy to use Drupal Platform, and best of breed e-mailing mechanisms and tools from Selligent. The idea to harmonize all email content, yet allowing the divisions to choose freely their color, segmentation, timing etc. gives the ‘impression’ of full freedom, while assuring unity and high professional quality. Receivers also feel free and in control of content and frequence.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The project needed to convince all business units in the EAME Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Each business team, especially people in internal communications in the teams, had to be part of the project. So we involved them all. These teams each had their historic solution in using e-mails and a multitude of newsletters, with various tools, formats, frequencies, styles and designs. The news project also needed to convince the receivers of these messages, spread across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Over 500 privileged contacts were included in the target, with a clear mapping of their needs and requirements.