JiWire Partners With Sheraton Hotels & Resorts
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
San Francisco-based JiWire, location-based mobile media company reaching the On-The-Go Audience, has announced an exclusive partnership with Sheraton Hotels & Resorts that will add more than 200 hotels to JiWire’s location-based Wi-Fi ad network.
The partnership coincides with the launching of a brand new Wi-Fi login portal, powered by Microsoft’s Bing, which will constantly be updated with relevant content specific to each Sheraton location (such as local maps and the top search results for area restaurants, attractions, special events and services.
JiWire is now Sheraton’s exclusive advertising partner to enable advertising across the Sheraton brand’s premium public Wi-Fi network, The exclusive partnership gives advertisers access to millions of guests nationwide. Furthermore, advertisers will have access to Sheraton’s newest innovation: The Link@Sheraton experienced with Microsoft, a unique lounge that enables today’s travelers to stay connected with instant access to information and technology for work, leisure and social networking installed in approximately 200 North America properties.
“The JiWire team understands our brand and our customers,” said Hoyt Harper, global brand leader for Sheraton Hotels. “Over 50% of our guests spend time in the Link – that’s more than eat breakfast, use the gym or visit the bar – which makes it one of the brand’s most valuable assets.”
Hotel guests are an extremely desirable audience for advertisers, spending an average of two hours connecting over Wi-Fi and consuming content across multiple devices. This partnership with Sheraton allows advertisers one of the few opportunities to reach these guests with localized messages based on their exact physical location. This level of context is critical as advertising undergoes a fundamental change toward location-specific engagement with audiences outside of their home or office. In addition, JiWire and Sheraton provide a cross-channel experience that allows brands to be the first message a user sees every time they connect throughout the hotel, whether over a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
“As Wi-Fi is seeing an acceleration of growth and consumer adoption, having access to one of the premier resort networks in North America is an exciting expansion for us,” says Dave Courtney, JiWire’s CEO. “For advertisers, knowing that someone is physically in such a premium venue as Sheraton, and knowing the exact location of that Sheraton, is extremely valuable as location-specific engagement becomes a must-have on every media plan.”
Sheraton Hotels & Resorts’ new online experience for guests designed by Microsoft’s new decision engine, Bing, features intuitive tools that promote a sense of discovery and captures the ‘pulse’ of the local destination, helping guests seamlessly navigate their stay. Designed as a social, interactive online global destination, the new ‘Sheraton Guest Portal powered by Bing’ will be featured worldwide in the ‘Link@Sheraton experienced with Microsoft’, in addition to in-room web access.
As part of the brand’s $6 billion revitalization effort, Sheraton Hotels has redesigned nearly 400 lobbies worldwide with the addition of its innovative Link@Sheraton experience with Microsoft, a unique lobby lounge that enables today’s travelers access to information and technology for work, leisure and social networking.
The new portal was specially designed to provide guests with an intuitive, tailored on-line experience specific to their destination — like having a personal concierge in the palm of your hand. As part of the new online experience, guests will find constantly updated relevant content, specific to each Sheraton location, such as local maps and the top search results for area restaurants, attractions, special events and services. With this pertinent information right at their fingertips, guests are able to make smarter, faster decisions on the road whether they’re looking for a local favorite to grab a bite in Boston or the top shopping tour in Milan.
The new portal uses a mix of rich imagery with a dashboard of dynamic tools that aggregates the top items requested from the concierge and makes them easy to find. With one click of the mouse guests can print a boarding pass, find the nearest entertainment and must see sites, get the local weather forecast, read the top news stories of the day or discover more about their hotel, such as the restaurant hours and spa offerings.
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