The Challenge
Hilton Honors is one of the world's largest loyalty programs. 190M members. Their content needs are massive .. they publish across 15 social channels daily. But their in-house content was looking increasingly corporate. Polished but lifeless. High production value but zero personality.
They approached us with a specific brief: make Hilton properties look the way they look on a creator's feed, not on a corporate brochure. Eight properties across four countries. UK, Italy, Japan and the Maldives. Six weeks. Two crew members.
Scaling Without Losing Quality
The temptation with 8 properties is to build a rigid system and apply it everywhere. Shoot list A for every lobby. Shot list B for every pool. That approach produces consistent content but it strips out everything that makes each property worth visiting.
Instead, we gave each property a "signature moment" .. the single thing a real guest would photograph and share. Waldorf Astoria Maldives: the overwater villa at sunrise. Conrad Tokyo: the 37th floor lobby with Mount Fuji visible on clear days. Hilton Lake Como: the infinity pool with the lake behind it. We built 60% of each property's content around that signature moment.
The Creator Approach
We shot everything handheld or on a small gimbal. No tripods except for time-lapses. No lighting rigs. The content had to feel like one person with a camera experiencing the property for the first time. Because that is exactly what a creator's content looks like.
We also adopted creator posting mechanics. Quick cuts. Text overlays in-camera (not added in post). POV sequences. Sound design that uses ambient audio, not stock music. Hilton's team was initially uncomfortable with the rougher aesthetic. After the first property's content outperformed their benchmark by 3x, they stopped asking for changes.
Logistics
Eight properties in 42 days. Average of 5 days per property including travel. We shipped a Pelican case of backup gear ahead to each country via FedEx to avoid carrying excess luggage. Primary kit traveled with us: Sony FX3, three prime lenses, DJI Mavic 3, DJI Mic 2 and a MacBook Pro for on-location editing.
The Maldives leg was the most complex. Two properties (Waldorf Astoria and Conrad) on separate islands, accessible only by seaplane. Weather delays cost us a full shooting day. We compressed the remaining schedule and delivered on time by cutting our shot list to essentials only.
Results
320 deliverables across all 8 properties. Average engagement rate: 5.2% .. more than double Hilton's global social benchmark of 2.4%. The Waldorf Astoria Maldives sunrise reel reached 4.8M views. Total production cost was 40% less than Hilton's previous approach of hiring 8 separate local agencies.
Hilton extended the contract for 12 additional properties in 2025. The same format. Same crew size. Same approach. Creator content at corporate scale, delivered by a team that understands both sides.