Latest / Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360 / A Rich Legacy of Innovation: A Q&A with Hilton on Providing Exceptional Hospitality for Honors Program Members

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A Rich Legacy of Innovation: A Q&A with Hilton on Providing Exceptional Hospitality for Honors Program Members · Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360

• 0:05
  Mark Johnson: Good afternoon, good morning.
• 0:06
  Mark Johnson: This is Mark Johnson from Loyalty 360.
• 0:07
  Mark Johnson: I hope everyone's happy, safe and well.
• 0:09
  Mark Johnson: I want to welcome you back to another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series.
• 0:13
  Mark Johnson: In this series, we speak with leading brands about what they are seeing and hearing on the front lines of customer channel and brand loyalty.
• 0:19
  Mark Johnson: Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Brad Anderson.
• 0:22
  Mark Johnson: He's the Vice President of the Hilton Honors Program, the Strategy Group at Hilton.
• 0:27
  Mark Johnson: How are you today, brad?
• 0:28
  Mark Johnson: I'm great.
• 0:29
  Mark Johnson: It's lovely.
• 0:30
  Mark Johnson: Out there it's raining here.
• 0:32
  Mark Johnson: It's summer, hot, humid, but it's been raining in Cincinnati for like a week now.
• 0:37
  Mark Johnson: I'm getting ready to figure out what an arc is, what a cubit is.
• 0:41
  Mark Johnson: I'm sorry a joke, yeah, so, again, thank you for taking the time.
• 0:46
  Mark Johnson: We'd like to start with you on a more personal level.
• 0:48
  Mark Johnson: I'd like to know you a little bit more.
• 0:50
  Mark Johnson: Obviously, you're rolled Hilton, maybe what you did before that, and you know a fun fact or a passion you may have outside of work?
• 0:56
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, of course.
• 0:58
  Mark Johnson: Thank you, Mark, and thank you to Loyalty360 for the conversation.
• 1:02
  Mark Johnson: You know, first and foremost, I'm a proud dad of two young children, both under five years old and part of my wife, of over 10 years.
• 1:11
  Mark Johnson: Professionally, as you mentioned, I serve as the Vice President of the Global Hilton Honors Loyalty Program.
• 1:15
  Mark Johnson: We're here in the Northern Virginia area.
• 1:17
  Mark Johnson: I've been with Hilton and specifically Hilton Honors, for the past seven years.
• 1:21
  Mark Johnson: In that time my team and I have charted new courses for the program, achieved a massive amount of growth over 100 million new members since I started and really tried to find the best strategies, investments to delight our customers.
• 1:34
  Mark Johnson: So you know my roles within Hilton have all been within the Loyalty Program.
• 1:39
  Mark Johnson: I've kind of really done a lot of different functions.
• 1:41
  Mark Johnson: So program design, strategy development I've been a part of any of the major program partner launches, program evolutions.
• 1:48
  Mark Johnson: I oversee our point currency to ensure we maintain our redemption value and flexibility for customers.
• 1:56
  Mark Johnson: My team also looks after the highest quality member experiences and digital innovations which I'm sure we'll get into to make staying just easy and seamless.
• 2:06
  Mark Johnson: And I also look after the commercial value of the program to our hotel ownership groups and have expertise right in the loyalty ops side.
• 2:14
  Mark Johnson: So in my current role I have the real great privilege of setting the overall strategy and vision for the program where we really try to position Honors as like the best global loyalty program across all of industries and within hospitality, that really means making the staying better for 165 million members.
• 2:34
  Mark Johnson: Prior to Hilton, I was at Deloitte Consulting in their strategy innovation practice and really fell in love with being a point obsessed nerd and locking the best value on the customer side.
• 2:43
  Mark Johnson: So I think you know nothing will say you know it's really a dream job.
• 2:47
  Mark Johnson: It's really fun to be in two dynamic industries loyalty and travel, hospitality and really bring these three moments.
• 2:55
  Mark Johnson: So on the fun fact side, I have been privileged enough to visit all of the lower 48 states and hike through many of the national parks.
• 3:03
  Mark Johnson: We actually have a trip in a few weeks to Alaska where the kids to stay in our Hampton Inn and Hilton Anchorage properties and we're planning for Hawaii early next year at around 50 states.
• 3:13
  Mark Johnson: So it's a little bit about me.
• 3:14
  Mark Johnson: That's good.
• 3:15
  Mark Johnson: 50 states is a good number.
• 3:17
  Mark Johnson: I think I counted it.
• 3:18
  Mark Johnson: I was in the 40s but not 48.
• 3:20
  Mark Johnson: So yeah, getting close.
• 3:22
  Mark Johnson: So Hilton, everyone knows the brand, iconic brand, great customer loyalty program, diamond Guy myself, hopefully I make it this year Going to be close when you look at Hilton.
• 3:35
  Mark Johnson: For those who may not know about Hilton, can you give us a little brief history of the brand and how you guys reformed and hold it.
• 3:43
  Mark Johnson: It would be great to know.
• 3:44
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, of course Hilton has a really rich history.
• 3:47
  Mark Johnson: Over a hundred years young we're A hundred years of hospitality, all of which started back in 1919 when Conrad Hilton entered the hotel business in Cisco, Texas, and so he actually was on his way to buy a bank and he actually pivoted and actually bought the Mowgli, which is a local hotel where he was staying there, when he saw the kind of business it was, which really sparked a whole new dream for him.
• 4:10
  Mark Johnson: In 1925, he opened the first hotel with the Hilton name in Dallas, texas, and he really aimed to be the best hotel in Texas and really focused on innovation really from the start of the company.
• 4:22
  Mark Johnson: So this hotel had elevators, laundry shoots, actually built the hotel with the west side of the building with no guest rooms, because Western Sun in Dallas is extremely hot and there was no air conditioning back then.
• 4:34
  Mark Johnson: So began on the innovation journey early on.
• 4:37
  Mark Johnson: Hilton came into the stock market as the first hotel company to join in 1946.
• 4:44
  Mark Johnson: And you may have heard of Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
• 4:48
  Mark Johnson: He bought that in 1949 to start a luxury journey, calling it the greatest of them all, and the same year we actually launched Hilton International at the Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico, where, fun fact, the Pina Colada was invented in 1954 by our hotel bar staff.
• 5:05
  Mark Johnson: Moving into, like the mid-century Baron Hilton introduced on the customer side a new Hilton card blanche credit card which is really the premier travel card of its time, and then in the 1990s, we became American Express' first co-branded credit card product, and they've been one of Orlando's longest standing partners, continuing today with our award-winning credit cards.
• 5:28
  Mark Johnson: In very recent years, Chris Nassetta became our CEO in 2009.
• 5:32
  Mark Johnson: We've just been on an extremely rapid growth journey.
• 5:36
  Mark Johnson: We had about 10 brands at the time when he joined.
• 5:39
  Mark Johnson: We now have over 20.
• 5:40
  Mark Johnson: We have 22 brands to meet every guest's need across the world.
• 5:44
  Mark Johnson: So, taking the full picture of Hilton, we are a leading global hospitality company.
• 5:48
  Mark Johnson: We have 7,300 properties across the world, 1.1 million rooms in 123 countries.
• 5:55
  Mark Johnson: So, in summary, it's all about the founding vision of filling the earth with the light and more hospitality, and we've done that by welcoming three billion guests.
• 6:04
  Mark Johnson: We are one of the top 100 best places to work for in the world, and so for me, it's just really extremely humbling to be part of that history and building that legacy in the loyalty side.
• 6:14
  Mark Johnson: That's awesome.
• 6:15
  Mark Johnson: Great to hear more about the history, for sure, and part of that history.
• 6:20
  Mark Johnson: You mentioned an amazing Hilton Honors program, loyalty program Under your stewardship you mentioned you've grown it over 100 million.
• 6:27
  Mark Johnson: Can you give us a brief history of the program, I mean when it was started, how the program works, how members engage with it and what are the benefits of the program?
• 6:35
  Mark Johnson: Most importantly, how do you keep it award-winning and going forward?
• 6:39
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, so I'll say first, Hilton Honors is kind of this connective tissue, as other loyalty programs are, that kind of glues our brands together.
• 6:49
  Mark Johnson: In some ways we call it a loyalty program, but I kind of personally think that undersells the value.
• 6:54
  Mark Johnson: It's the lifeblood, it's how you connect with every one of our guests in a meaningful way, in a personal way, and it's really about making travel effortless, really fun, delighting.
• 7:05
  Mark Johnson: We have a bunch of exceptional experiences.
• 7:07
  Mark Johnson: You may have seen our new brand platform launch last year.
• 7:11
  Mark Johnson: So if Hilton is for the stay, then Hilton Honors is all about making that stay even better when you have a relationship with us.
• 7:19
  Mark Johnson: So in terms of history, we debuted in 1987.
• 7:22
  Mark Johnson: In fact fun fact the program actually started as an instant win scratch-off promotion tied to the US Olympic team sponsorship, and since then we've grown to a number of industry-first innovations.
• 7:35
  Mark Johnson: But those are really those humble beginnings, and momentum grew.
• 7:39
  Mark Johnson: We were a million members in 1996, 10 million in 2002, 20 million in 2008.
• 7:45
  Mark Johnson: And when I first joined in 2016, we've added over 100 million members, so we are known to be the fastest growing hotel loyalty program in the industry.
• 7:55
  Mark Johnson: We have over 165 million members now, which is a 20% year-over-year growth, and we added about 7 million last quarter.
• 8:03
  Mark Johnson: So by the time we're probably done speaking, we will have added a couple thousand members to the program.
• 8:07
  Mark Johnson: That's great, which is crazy.
• 8:09
  Mark Johnson: And before I get to the customer side, our members make up a large amount of hotels.
• 8:15
  Mark Johnson: So they account for about 64% of all occupied nights in the entire world, and that's the highest amount across major hospitality companies.
• 8:25
  Mark Johnson: So really think of it this way six out of every 10 guests in any hotel in the world right now are Hilton Honors members.
• 8:32
  Mark Johnson: So you mentioned how do we do that?
• 8:34
  Mark Johnson: What's the secret sauce?
• 8:36
  Mark Johnson: On the customer experience side, it's really simple, but hard to complex to execute.
• 8:41
  Mark Johnson: All we're trying to do is making the staying experience better for all members.
• 8:46
  Mark Johnson: Whether you stay one night or whether you stay 100 nights, we have different rewards and benefits to enhance your experience, both within the stay but also around in adjacencies, around the staying.
• 8:56
  Mark Johnson: So what are we about?
• 8:58
  Mark Johnson: First thing to know is we're easy.
• 9:00
  Mark Johnson: It's just easy to join.
• 9:01
  Mark Johnson: Our points are easy to earn, easy to redeem.
• 9:04
  Mark Johnson: We have no gotchas to keep you from using your points.
• 9:06
  Mark Johnson: It's really rewarding.
• 9:08
  Mark Johnson: So we offer discounts, we have generous promotions, we give you ways to get status through our credit cards.
• 9:16
  Mark Johnson: I think uniquely Hilton honors is this idea of customization and flexibility.
• 9:20
  Mark Johnson: So with our app you can choose your room, the exact room you want.
• 9:24
  Mark Johnson: We give you a very flexible way to use your points, with industry first points and money slider.
• 9:30
  Mark Johnson: So any hotel, no block updates.
• 9:33
  Mark Johnson: If that paid room is there, we are allowing you to use your points, which isn't necessarily standard in hospitality, and we have exclusive partners like Lyft, amazon, ticketmaster if you need to use your points in a flexible way.
• 9:48
  Mark Johnson: In terms of the hotel experience, I think you talked with my colleague Amanda Jamerson about our automated room upgrades.
• 9:55
  Mark Johnson: If you're elite, that gives you the confirmed room 72 hours ahead of time that upgrade, and then the last thing I'll say is we're trying to create dreams.
• 10:04
  Mark Johnson: So what's the dream?
• 10:06
  Mark Johnson: Stay with your points, a dream experience.
• 10:08
  Mark Johnson: We kind of have that opportunity for you to really engage beyond just a room.
• 10:15
  Mark Johnson: So a lot of ways to engage, a lot of ways to have a relationship with us, and I think one of those ways to engage could be International Friendship Day I think that's July 30th which helps Hilton Honor members make it easy for the next friendcation.
• 10:30
  Mark Johnson: Can you tell us a little bit about that promotion, that idea, how that came to be?
• 10:33
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, I think it really Hilton.
• 10:35
  Mark Johnson: It really matters where you stay and we really want to provide Hilton Honors as a way to unlock that really great stay and not just for yourself, but that stay with your friends on International Friendship Day or beyond.
• 10:48
  Mark Johnson: So it's all about giving value if you're trying to travel together.
• 10:52
  Mark Johnson: So, as I mentioned before, making sure you and your friends get the best discount is through Hilton Honors.
• 10:58
  Mark Johnson: So making sure folks are able to book them, book that really easily through the app and then making sure you reward you for that and all your friends staying.
• 11:06
  Mark Johnson: So I want to make sure that you're getting ways to get points for those future friends days and if you have elite status, you are able to get those points faster and use them really quickly without having to build up a bunch of points to go with your friends.
• 11:22
  Mark Johnson: And then, lastly, as if your friend has status or other elements, being able to have that room upgrade when you're going with your crew to your travel experience and making sure you receive that food and beverage experience that comes with status.
• 11:40
  Mark Johnson: Just make sure that stay is something that feels different, whether it's one person or four to eight people Excellent.
• 11:48
  Mark Johnson: When you look at the Hilton Honors allowing travel buddies the opportunity to pull their points to book rooms, how is that?
• 11:54
  Mark Johnson: Collaboration between the accounts resulted in greater program engagement.
• 11:59
  Mark Johnson: How are you looking at that?
• 12:00
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, we were the first to launch free points pooling and free transfer in the industry.
• 12:05
  Mark Johnson: So it really allows you to have 11 Honors members if that's how big your group is a member and 10 others to combine your points really easily to get that next day with your friends or family.
• 12:19
  Mark Johnson: And we don't charge you for that.
• 12:21
  Mark Johnson: There's no transaction fees, there's no gotchas.
• 12:23
  Mark Johnson: So we've seen a lot of members use the ability to come together, have a family, extended family, use your points together for a hotel stay or even some of the experiences on our platform, which I'm sure I'll talk a little bit about, but really it's offered a great way to drive stickiness, have engagement, like we want you to use your points with your friends and family, so we want you to get you to that stay and stay with our amazing brand.
• 12:48
  Mark Johnson: So that's really the goal with that product.
• 12:51
  Mark Johnson: Ok, you mentioned Hilton.
• 12:54
  Mark Johnson: Honors has a very flexible mobile app.
• 12:56
  Mark Johnson: You can access your Jujube Room key, move rooms around, especially if you have a pet or don't have a pet, you can get next to that door potentially.
• 13:04
  Mark Johnson: How has the mobile app allowed for more personalized experience for customers and where do you think technology is leading to in the hotel industry with Hilton to maybe enable more of that?
• 13:16
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, the Hilton Honors app is a critical piece of allowing our members to control that travel experience and have some flexibility as they do it.
• 13:25
  Mark Johnson: I've had a lot of industry first on that front and really have leaned into technology enhancements to make sure the guest experience is immediately valuable and customizable for members right when they join and sign up.
• 13:38
  Mark Johnson: So one really cool innovation is something called Confirm Connecting Rooms.
• 13:43
  Mark Johnson: We were the first in the industry to be able to build a way to instantly confirm those connecting rooms.
• 13:50
  Mark Johnson: So if you travel with your family or your friends, you're like hoping at the front desk they have a connecting room there.
• 13:55
  Mark Johnson: Put in a request.
• 13:56
  Mark Johnson: This actually lets you do it at time of booking, so you'll have that way to know that you're right next to your friends and your family, which is critically important.
• 14:08
  Mark Johnson: On the Choose your Room elements, we talked a bit about that but being able to be away from the elevator or be close to the elevator on the first floor, it's very seamless in the way to do that.
• 14:18
  Mark Johnson: We also have a digital key which lets you go straight to your room.
• 14:22
  Mark Johnson: A first for them, a major hospitality company, was digital key share, so you can actually share that with your guests or your friends, your family, with up to four people, right through the phone, right through the app.
• 14:35
  Mark Johnson: Actually, for us as a young family, trying to get two kids in the room and having my wife up there and then being able to go back to the car and having two keys is really critical and a digital key experience.
• 14:47
  Mark Johnson: And then, last couple of things, we have integrated our Lyft rideshare right into the app.
• 14:53
  Mark Johnson: So if you need to book your Lyft through Traveling with Friends, you have to go find the hotel address.
• 14:59
  Mark Johnson: It's all really integrated into the experience.
• 15:03
  Mark Johnson: So, a few ways to engage and have a different feeling stay with Hilton through our app Technology.
• 15:09
  Mark Johnson: Okay, excellent.
• 15:10
  Mark Johnson: Definitely, being able to share a key is important.
• 15:13
  Mark Johnson: I travel a lot for soccer.
• 15:14
  Mark Johnson: My daughter is actually starting at Akron next week.
• 15:17
  Mark Johnson: She's going to play soccer for them, hopefully, start.
• 15:19
  Mark Johnson: So I end up sharing keys with her no matter where we are, and it works very well.
• 15:24
  Mark Johnson: So that's a really cool innovation.
• 15:25
  Mark Johnson: Definitely.
• 15:28
  Mark Johnson: That's awesome.
• 15:29
  Mark Johnson: So when you look at your mobile app and kind of the customer experience platform, members can explore different experiences and outings when they're on their trip.
• 15:40
  Mark Johnson: How does that help from a personalization perspective to create engagement and where do you see the experience platform going?
• 15:46
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, this, this is one of the one of the coolest pieces of the program.
• 15:50
  Mark Johnson: So the Hilton Alesi experiences platform allows members to, you know, engage in our kind of some exclusive partnerships and kind of pursue those passion points typically around to stay, so their favorite artists, big culture moments, pursuing passions that really inspire them.
• 16:06
  Mark Johnson: So the first thing that we think about is how do we understand our guests and what interests go beyond travel or integrate with travel, and how we reward them by creating money can't buy elements that you know having these honors points Creates that experience for them.
• 16:21
  Mark Johnson: So you know what's different about us as well is that we actually Integrate our hotel and signature hospitality into these once-in-a-lifetime moments.
• 16:30
  Mark Johnson: And I'll give you a few examples.
• 16:32
  Mark Johnson: You know we recently had last year a John Legend private member only concert at our world of Astoria DC property.
• 16:40
  Mark Johnson: We had a cultural connection with the roots and their meet and greet in Philly.
• 16:47
  Mark Johnson: And In Europe we have exclusive partnership with McLaren and they have a F1.
• 16:52
  Mark Johnson: The British Grand Prix was there.
• 16:53
  Mark Johnson: We actually have a hotel at Silverstone racetrack it's a Hilton Garden Inn and we did a bunch of activations with McLaren and we had Paris Hilton DJ for us had our members be able to kind of engage with the F1 experience in a totally different way, where we integrated the hotel and the experience itself.
• 17:14
  Mark Johnson: You mentioned soccer.
• 17:15
  Mark Johnson: We actually just launched a Chelsea football club sponsorship and being able to get VIP access to those football players on the match, on the pitch With the with their experiences.
• 17:27
  Mark Johnson: So you know we've done a lot of other things.
• 17:30
  Mark Johnson: We have a Grammy partnership that were the official hotel sponsor there, but she did a really cool thing with the connected room concert where Brandy Carlisle Was actually did a performance between our two rooms In that concert for for for Hilton, which was a really cool experience.
• 17:48
  Mark Johnson: So you know a lot of different ways to to engage and I'd say you know there's a lot of exciting Signature events coming up, like the Ryder Cup we can actually stay on the green in a real hotel room.
• 18:00
  Mark Johnson: We have more F1 coming up and and if you stick around, we'll have some maybe surprise music events later this year.
• 18:05
  Mark Johnson: So a lot going on there.
• 18:07
  Mark Johnson: It's a it's a really cool piece of the program.
• 18:09
  Mark Johnson: That's great.
• 18:11
  Mark Johnson: When you look at these personalized offers, you know how does voice of the customer come into play with this, like listening to feedback, potentially of a different F1 or NASCAR or, you know, is that something you guys do?
• 18:23
  Mark Johnson: Or and how do you look at voice of the customer Regarding your customer loyalty and customer experience strategies?
• 18:29
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, it's absolutely critical and foundation to any loyalty program, any product experience.
• 18:35
  Mark Johnson: So you know, I think we really build off the foundation of, you know, all of our years of history of listening to our customer, being on the forefront of any trends and their tastes and passions.
• 18:45
  Mark Johnson: I mean we do a lot of you know, focused look at what, what customers are doing.
• 18:48
  Mark Johnson: You know, in the last couple years have been some interesting Elements going on with with bleacher traveler, pet friendly travel, group travel, as we've talked about before, and then for for hotels or loyalty programs, this instant gratification gamification.
• 19:03
  Mark Johnson: How do we take advantage of that and make it fun?
• 19:06
  Mark Johnson: That's ultimately what this should be.
• 19:10
  Mark Johnson: So you know we really take a look at, you know, all of our offerings, make sure we get information on what our active products are, whether that's in social media, post-a surveys, other research moments, in more emergent group like Gen Z travelers, and kind of take that in as we build our innovation strategy and we're all into testing new concepts, taking new approaches out there and then quickly scaling them across our 7300 hotel.
• 19:34
  Mark Johnson: So that's our process.
• 19:34
  Mark Johnson: But we definitely you got to start with the customer and what they're, what they're into Excellent.
• 19:42
  Mark Johnson: When you look at all the new enhancements you've made to the program, what features do you see members leveraging most and getting the most value out of?
• 19:50
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, no, first and foremost, I think our members are really dreaming of the next day.
• 19:58
  Mark Johnson: How do we build those features that can get them to their aspirational travel destinations even faster, and talked about the flexible slider in some ways, that if you have 5,000 points, you can start seeing value and go to these really exciting properties that we're opening across the world.
• 20:15
  Mark Johnson: For example, we have the Conrad Los Angeles just opened earlier this year, embassy Suites Aruba, the world D&D I mentioned.
• 20:24
  Mark Johnson: We have new Curios, which is our collection brand, hotel Matera in Madrid.
• 20:30
  Mark Johnson: We have new Hilton's in Okinawa and we have some new hotels coming.
• 20:36
  Mark Johnson: One of our newest brands, tempo in Times Square, is opening very soon.
• 20:41
  Mark Johnson: I think, making ways to understand what those properties are, using your points really quickly, pulling them with your friends those are ways to get to the Hilton hospitality even faster.
• 20:49
  Mark Johnson: Another technology side I think that's a lot of what we've seen.
• 20:53
  Mark Johnson: The digital key share has been wildly popular in exact abuse case.
• 20:58
  Mark Johnson: You mentioned that automated complimentary room upgrade experience is unique to us in the industry and then really just getting those points transfers to unlock that stays or some things I'm seeing across our membership base that they love.
• 21:14
  Mark Johnson: A question we'd love to ask is, especially someone who has the passion that you have for the industry, right, you have to work for a great brand, as you mentioned earlier Hilton, and also customer loyalty, which is, I think, is one of the most dynamic fields to work in.
• 21:27
  Mark Johnson: You get to talk to smart people about smart things, innovation and human behavior.
• 21:31
  Mark Johnson: But when you look at loyalty, there are a couple brands that are a brand that you may be loyal to or admire, and if so, why?
• 21:38
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, I actually am.
• 21:41
  Mark Johnson: As a apparently two young kids, starbucks is, even before kids, always been an admirer of what they've done with their loyalty experience Just earned some stars this morning from there's a Starbucks down here at the Hilton headquarters office.
• 21:57
  Mark Johnson: So I think they do some really fun things with their promotions, like Starbucks for Life if you use that, and their promotional offers in their app I think are really fun to use.
• 22:09
  Mark Johnson: But I'm kind of a sucker in general for a good game and earning points could be equally as fun as we're dating points.
• 22:18
  Mark Johnson: So that fun cycle, if you want to call it that for a product, is unique.
• 22:23
  Mark Johnson: With Starbucks you can do that daily and as a dad of two kids, it's certainly want to have some fun while caffeinating and a really cool user experience.
• 22:33
  Mark Johnson: It's kind of what I think is interesting.
• 22:36
  Mark Johnson: I think there's a lot of parallels to the really seamless digital check-in key share that we have.
• 22:42
  Mark Johnson: And how do you make digital fun and engaging beyond functionals?
• 22:47
  Mark Johnson: I admire them for that.
• 22:49
  Mark Johnson: What can Loyalty 360 do to help you and your team regarding your customer loyalty journey?
• 22:54
  Mark Johnson: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 22:56
  Mark Johnson: So I think being a member of Loyalty 360, Hilton and our team members really benefit from being a part of that discussion of the latest trends, as we talked about before in loyalty, and just getting dialogue across the industry leading brands is super helpful to those leaders like myself and my team.
• 23:14
  Mark Johnson: Events like the Loyalty 360 expo really gives us opportunities to come together, exchange ideas, just find out what's going on in the across the industry and highlight some of the work we've been doing and innovating on, like we shared automated upgrades early this year to the broader industry group.
• 23:32
  Mark Johnson: So it's really just great to have that spark of creative thinking across our industry peers and I think loyalty 360 helps unlock that for us.
• 23:42
  Mark Johnson: Brad, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today.
• 23:44
  Mark Johnson: It was great getting to meet you.
• 23:46
  Mark Johnson: Hearing a little bit about you, your new kids and the passion you have, not only Hilton but also customer loyalty, is great to hear because sometimes that passion isn't there with brands in a way that it is definitely with you and Hilton.
• 23:59
  Mark Johnson: So thank you for sharing and look forward to hearing more from Hilton through the remainder of 2023.
• 24:03
  Mark Johnson: And thank you, everyone else, for listening.
• 24:05
  Mark Johnson: Have a wonderful day and look forward to having you back on another edition of our Leaders in Customer Loyalty series.
• 24:10
  Mark Johnson: Have a wonderful day.