Major hotel chains known for being reliable and consistent and anything but edgy are now trying to appeal to the younger traveler, spending millions of dollars on elaborate marketing campaigns that draw heavily on pop culture and social media.
Holiday Inn Express, one of the fastest growing chains in the U.S. with 2,200 properties, today is launching the "Smart Thinking" campaign which will invite travelers to show how smart they are by offering humorous advice on any topic through Vine and YouTube videos, Instagram photos and Tweets. The chain has enlisted Daily Show comedian Jason Jones as a spokesman and is collaborating with websites such as CollegeHumor and Buzzfeed to spread the content.
Marriott Hotels and Resorts, Marriott International's largest brand with 600 hotels, has started the "Travel Brilliantly" campaign, which will include new commercials that will appear on mobile devices, on Web sites such as Hulu and Mashable and during shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live.
The brands are trying to appeal to the next generation of travelers who stay constantly connected through social media, have an interest in design, and favor coffee-house like public spaces where they can both work and play.
"What we learned about our guests is that they're mobile, they're global, they demand substance in design," says Mara Hannula, vice president of global marketing for Marriott Hotels. "They really don't separate work and play."
Hotels have increasingly been going after the Generation X and Generation Y traveler because of their growing clout as consumers. Generation X travelers were typically born from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. Generation Y travelers, or Millennials, were generally born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.
"Their lifetime value is higher because they have many more years of travel ahead of them, they view travel as an entitlement more than their Baby Boomer parents did and are willing to spend on it, and their hotel brand affinities are not fully formed so they are still in play as far as their travel habits are concerned," says Chekitan Dev, an associate professor of marketing and branding at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and author of Hospitality Branding.
The use of social media is a clear bid for the younger traveler, says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing.
"The choice of partner, CollegeHumor is particularly telling, since that definitely skews toward millennial generation audience, as does the Daily Show spokesman," she says. "While we find that many consumers of a certain age use some social media, its usage is far more prevalent among younger generation consumers."
Stay Smart
Heather Balsley, senior vice president of brand management for the Holiday Inn Brand Family, Americas, called Holiday Inn Express's typical guests 20-somethings to 40-somethings who are "self-sufficient, highly-connected, working professionals."
She says that the company recognizes the importance of Millennial travelers, but that it is not going after them exclusively. Holiday Inn Express is focused on frequent business travelers of any age who value efficiency and simplicity, she says.
That traveler's goal is to "get into the room, where they can work productively, spend the night, refuel, and get on their way," she says. "That spans generations."
Holiday Inn's "Smart Thinking" campaign is part of a $20 million marketing strategy for the brand that includes the revival of its "Stay Smart" commercials, which were hugely popular from 1998 to 2008.
The commercials showed people succeeding at extraordinary tasks that they had no training for, then explaining it with the punch line: "But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express hotel last night."
Now Holiday Inn Express is urging people to make their own humorous videos and tag content with #StaySmart to have it appear on StaySmart.com, a new online community.
Jones, a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, says Holiday Inn Express embraces humor in a way that will get people to engage with them.
"They can actually have an interaction with the company for the first time," he says.
He says Holiday Inn Express is adapting to an "on-demand world."
"Back in the day … when you had a problem with a company, you had to write them a letter," he says. Now "it is such an immediate response that you can get from corporations and companies."
Dev says the Holiday Inn Express campaign will appeal more to the younger traveler.
"Because YouTube, Vine and Instagram users tend to be younger and more tech savvy, encouraging their customers to use social media to dialogue with the brand is another indicator that Holiday Inn Express is trying to appeal to the Gen X, Gen Y and Millennial travelers, at least initially," he says.
Dev says it could be a smart move because it "will ultimately reach all their markets."
"The buzz from this campaign will, if successful, enhance the brand's 'cool factor', migrate as free exposure on traditional media, reach older travelers, and draw them to the brand," he says.
Travel Brilliantly
Marriott, meanwhile, has never gone so aggressively after the younger generation.
But Marriott's own research has shown how lucrative capturing that market can be. Business travelers ages 21 to 49 who make three or more business trips a year spend $34 billion on hotel rooms, according to Marriott's research.
Millennials already outnumber the Baby Boomer generation. According to the United Nations Department of Economic Social Affairs, there are about 79 million Millennials vs. 76 million Baby Boomers. By 2030, there will be 22 million more Millennials than Baby Boomers.
Marriott plans to spend about $60 million globally on the new campaign over the next two years. The chain will also adopt a new, more modern logo that will be featured on key cards, "Do Not Disturb" door hangers, and in-room directories. A new website, travelbrilliantly.com, will highlight changes under development and solicit ideas from travelers about what they want to experience at hotels.
But Hannula acknowledges that new commercials and logos alone won't draw the younger traveler to a particular hotel chain.
"It's not just the campaign. The brand is going through a pretty major transformation," she says. "We're rethinking pretty much everything."
By the end of next year, 75% of Marriott's properties worldwide will have "Greatroom" lobbies that offer guests a more open, social setting to work and hang out.
The company has also adopted new technology such as Red Coat Direct, a Smartphone app that an event coordinator can use to ask for anything during a business meeting or celebration without ever leaving the room. A mobile check-in app will soon launch that will let guests check in from anywhere and get alerts when their room is ready.
Analysts say it makes good business sense for hotels to appeal to younger travelers. But they say it will be a challenge for traditional brands such as Marriott and Holiday Inn Express to lure them from the boutique hotels or Starwood Aloft properties they generally gravitate to.
"Marriott and Holiday Inn brands are not really thought of as this generation's brands. Rather they are the brands associated with their grandparents," Danziger says. "But that doesn't mean these brands can't reinvent themselves for the next generation."
As an example, she pointed to Lincoln Motor Cars's Phoenix commercial during the Super Bowl where an old Lincoln Town Car drives into a fire ball and emerges the new Lincoln MKX.
"For this generation having a robust internet marketing strategy which includes social media and mobile apps is critical because this is one of the most important ways that this generation learns about brands, researches purchases and ultimately makes purchases," she says.
Source: USA Today
