Vol. 107 Four Seasons: The viral baby 🐣

Case Studied
Running with virality

Time and again, brands like Ryanair and Duolingo have proved mastery at running with virality and social media engagement. 

Luxury brands, on the other hand, rarely play in this space. But in 2024, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts did the unexpected and stepped directly into a viral meme.

This week, Case Studied explores how Four Seasons reignited the brand’s TikTok page and racked up 1.9 million engagements.

The Brief

Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts is one of the world’s premier luxury hospitality brands, celebrated for exacting service standards, deep personalization, and polished marketing. But like many legacy brands, they had weaker brand familiarity and lower consideration among younger millennial and Gen Z travelers.

Opportunity to change that came a-knockin’, thanks to a 13-month-old toddler named Kate. Kate’s aunt, Stefanie O’Brien, posted a TikTok video of her niece being asked, “Who wants to go to the Four Seasons Orlando?”, to which Kate responded with an enthusiastic, “Meee!”

@sobrizzle

If the @Four Seasons Hotels is looking for a baby ambassador my niece got you 😂🤣😂🤣😂

That video racked up over 62 million views and earned Kate the nickname “Four Seasons Baby.” 

At the time, the Four Seasons’ TikTok had been dormant for two years. Yet the brand was suddenly dealing with unexpected virality on the platform—and they responded very quickly.

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The Execution

The Four Seasons’ social team worked with We Are Social Canada to execute their “Four Seasons Baby” campaign with Kate. Within four days of the video going viral, they reached out to her family via TikTok direct message. In under three hours, the team conceived, remotely directed, and edited the brand’s first TikTok response, marking the official end of its two-year hiatus on the platform.

@fourseasons

#Stitch with @Stefanie O’Brien Let the adventure begin @Stefanie O’Brien fam 🏰✨@FourSeasonsOrlando #LuxuryTravel #FamilyTravel #LoveFourSeasons

The response video featured the Four Seasons Orlando staff inviting Kate’s family for a Memorial Day weekend stay and upgrading them from a standard room to the presidential suite. 

Before the family arrived, the Orlando team held planning calls with O’Brien and her sister to personalize the experience down to the smallest details: preferred snacks, activities, and even wardrobe considerations for Will, the dad who had become an unexpected subplot in the TikTok comments because of his unbuttoned shirt in the viral video. 

The suite was prepared with surprise moments throughout, and the family was greeted upon arrival with a celebratory welcome line. Kate’s mom, Bailey Wise, said “truly everywhere you looked and every room you walked in, there was a huge surprise.”

The Four Seasons leaned into the internet’s characterization of Kate as “the fully conscious baby” and took cues from the comments section. That meant giving her:

• a custom tuxedo

• a robe and pool towel with the words “Boss Baby” embroidered on them

• bottles of milk served on an actual silver platter

• gold truffle pasta

@fourseasons

Fully conscious and utterly fabulous at Four Seasons Orlando. 👑 #LoveFourSeasons #LuxuryTravel #FamilyTravel #FourSeasonsOrlando #FullyConsciousBaby

Over the course of the weekend, O’Brien posted four TikTok videos showcasing moments from the family’s stay. One showed Kate being fanned by palm leaves at the pool, another showed her voraciously digging into truffle pasta. Meanwhile, the Four Seasons posted gifs, stickers, and memes from the family’s stay and engaged with the audience in the comments section.

But perhaps the most impressive part of the campaign is the timing. The viral video, the brand’s return to TikTok, the family’s stay, and the social production was all done within 7 days.

The Results

The Four Seasons Baby moment became one of the year’s most celebrated examples of real-time cultural marketing. The brand saw 1.9 million TikTok engagements and their account gained 18,500 new followers, a major lift for a brand returning to the platform after two years away.

The hashtag #FourSeasonsOrlando reached 556 million organic views, according to the Shorty Awards entry. Meanwhile, O’Brien’s original viral post surpassed 62 million views and her follow-up videos of the family’s stay racked up more than 43 million views.

The Four Seasons achieved all of this with no paid media and a production budget under CAD $5,000, resulting in an estimated $10 million in earned media value.

The campaign went on to win multiple honors at the Shorty Awards, including distinctions in Short Form Video, Use of Viral Content, Real Time Response, and On a Shoestring.

The Takeaways

1)  Meet the moment, even if it’s unfamiliar territory.

Four Seasons entered a viral moment that didn’t immediately match luxury norms. But it worked because the brand didn’t try to reshape the meme into something more serious or polished. Instead, it allowed the audience’s joyful interpretation of Kate to guide the tone of the activation while keeping the brand’s authenticity intact.

Reacting to culture doesn’t require abandoning your brand standards. If your audience brings you into a moment, consider engaging on their terms quickly, respectfully, and without overclaiming the spotlight.

2) Make sure your brand values shape the creative.

From planning calls to truffle pasta, every gesture in the Four Seasons’ activation aligned with what the brand already stands for: high quality services delivered with warmth, care, and delight. Instead of imitating meme culture, the Four Seasons translated the meme through its own lens.

When responding to a viral moment, use your brand’s foundational values as the creative filter. The question isn’t, “How do we replicate the meme?”, it’s “How would our brand bring this moment to life in a way only we can?”

3)  Match the platform’s tone.

The videos from Kate and her family’s stay looked and felt like TikToks. Even though the team behind them worked with meticulous care, they were unpolished, energetic, and anchored in real interactions. That choice preserved authenticity and helped the activation blend into the native language of the platform.

Marketers can learn from this restraint. When a cultural moment begins with a scrappy, unfiltered post, don’t smother it with polish. Let your participation feel native to the medium where the moment is happening.

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