Millennial Media Opps: Virgin Hotels taps CEO with marketing background, significantly increases spend (Score 34)

Effective March 1, 2021, James Bermingham is the CEO at Virgin Hotels (VH). He brings marketing expertise, having supported the marketing efforts in his former role of Montage Hotels & Resorts's operations SVP. Considering these former responsibilities, Bermingham's hire will likely result in shifts in VH's marketing spend and overall strategy.

Reportedly, VH is currently experiencing its strongest growth ever. This year, its leaders plan to open three coast-to-coast openings in Las Vega, New Orleans and NYC; it already operates hotels in Chicago, Dallas and Nashville. Additionally, it's developing properties in Miami and pursuing potential opportunities in Philadelphia.

So far this year, Pathmatics reports VH has already allocated roughly $124.5k toward digital ads, more than double its estimated full-year 2020 spend of $59.7m. This 2020 spend only reached half of that of roughly $131.1k in 2019. VH has earned around 46.1m digital impressions YD via desktop display (97%) and Facebook (3%) ads. 99% of this year's desktop display ads were placed via Google AdX + AdSense onto zillow.com.

As you can see, VH's digital ad spend dropped notably last year but has already picked back up. Thus, it will keep investing in digital channels throughout 2021. The company's desktop display site targeting shows that it's particularly targeting people looking to move, and its heavy reliance on this channels shows that this target demographic primarily consists of millennials. VH also targets business leaders in need of places to stay amid their travels.

It may invest in localized ad space in the aforementioned cities in which it operates, which will lead to opportunities in the cities into which its hotels are expanding. For this reason, I have tagged each relevant regions to this article.

Agency & martech readers - New CEOs don't always conduct agency reviews as often as new CMOs might, but considering his background in marketing leadership, Bermingham may be an exception. Reviews also follow one another, and less than a year has passed since VP appointed creative AOR Joan. Both of these shifts make additional agency reviews more possible, so I suggest you reach out soon to remain top-of-mind. To the best of our knowledge, VH is also working with OH Partners, NextGuest Digital and BCV Social