Over a few months, couples submitted short videos of their stories to the group’s Facebook page and eventually 10 videos from the first round were shortlisted and the participants asked to make a second video for final judging. 

Well, last week, the winner was announced. The lucky couple, Piper Ingraham and Rob Monforto (pictured), now living in New York, won a million Asia Miles and luxury stays in every Langham around the world – a once-in-a-lifetime prize worth US$40,000 for videoing their story – The Canterbury Twist. (The 10 videos can be viewed at the Langham’sFacebook page)

Their videos told the story of how their 21st century romance began while teaching music four years ago in the UK, how their love was tested in a long distance relationship and finally an international scavenger hunt that led to their engagement.

Sean Seah (below), director of ecommerce at Langham, said the campaign had three objectives – build the Langham brand through social media; connect and engage with its fans on social networks; and innovate in the hospitality space and do something compelling in the social media space.

“Langham Hotels has a rich history of romance and enchantment dating back to 1865. We wanted to see how we could translate this romance online. We worked with our hotels and our agency to understand which events in life are the most romantic and memorable.

“The idea of a wedding proposal came up several times and after our online research we concluded that such an event was universally engaging and incredibly viral.” 

He said that they received almost 30 high quality entries for the competition from all over the world. 

“The passion and creativity that each contestant put into the entries surprised us. The second phase of the campaign was to gather online support and we saw the videos go viral as each contestant sought online support from all their friends and families. In fact one contestant got their entire town to support, and even got the local newspaper to make their entry go viral.”

To him, the key wins from the campaign are connecting and engaging with over 10,000 global fans of Langham; sharing in the creation and promotions of almost 30 viral videos of real people sharing the most romantic moments in their lives; and the vast amount of lessons learned about how to run a global social media campaign.

And oh yes, the campaign also produced actual business. Said Seah, “While it wasn’t a primary objective, one of the best things about the campaign was that some of the couples in the videos have booked their wedding reception at our hotels because of the campaign.

“So many in fact that the cost of the campaign has been covered by the wedding bookings. So we can say Langham’s first ever global social media campaign was financially profitable!”

And in another bid to increase profits through social media, the group has also launched a booking service which allows users of Facebook to directly reserve rooms via the company’s fan page.

The special offers on the fan page links directly to the group’s real-time reservations page. Facebook fans will be able to check availability and instantly book the rooms of their choice.

Said Seah, “The full power of the social media world has yet to be unlocked by the travel industry. Linking the ability to reserve our hotels via Facebook, the world’s most powerful social networking website, is a natural extension of our services in a world that’s constantly connected.”

The hotel group was the first to launch a voice-enabled hotel iphone application in 2009. In Langham Place, Hong Kong, iPhone 4s are available for guests and iPads are used extensively by the concierge, the restaurants and available on loan for guests. 

“Guests today are familiar with technology, using social media websites and even mobile applications,” said Seah. “However, adoption of technology is about making sure it is beneficial to the guest experience before, during and after their stay with us.”