CLIENT: Holiday Inn
PR AGENCY: GCI
Group
CATEGORY: Marketing Communications
BUDGET: $1,840,000
TIMEFRAME: Labor Day Weekend 2003
We've all done it -- "borrowed" a hotel towel and taken it home.
One in five of us stash such souvenirs -- according to a Harris
Interactive poll -- and that adds up to an estimated 560,000
Holiday Inn towels disappearing during the course of one
year. So, back in the spring of 2003, Mark Snyder, the newly minted
senior vice president of brand management for the U.K.- owned
Holiday Inn chain, got together with Atlanta-based PR agency
GCI and decided to do something about it.
Hence, "Towel Amnesty Day" was born on Labor Day 2003, offering
people the opportunity to return the distinctive green-striped
Holiday Inn towels and to tell their accompanying stories on a
specially launched Web site.
The aim was not just to rehabilitate a few towels, but also to
pique consumer interest and attract column inches. By offering a
gesture of good will, Holiday Inn hoped to capitalize on the
brand's appeal without seeming dated and to emphasize the bond
Americans have with the brand. After all, Holiday Inn, with 1,005
U.S. hotels and a presence in 100 countries, was one of the world's
best-known hotel brands -- albeit one many people thought had seen
its heyday and was in decline; an image Snyder was on a mission to
reverse.
GCI originally had pitched the amnesty idea back in 2001 to
promote Holiday Inn's 50th anniversary, but the hotel chain's
previous management shot it down. "They thought it would make the
brand look old," says Virginia Bush, senior PR manager for Holiday
Inn. Then came a change of leadership, ushering in dynamo Snyder, a
Holiday Inn evangelist who had wanted to work for the hotel chain
ever since staying there as a child.
"We brought it up almost by accident, and Mark loved the idea
and committed a significant budget to it," says Bill Crane, senior
vice president at GCI. "Mark saw Holiday Inn as an icon that
consumers connected to emotionally. He saw the towels, sign and
script as bonuses as opposed to baggage. The previous management
thought, 'you're telling our customers it's alright to steal?' But
we were saying, 'no, we forgive you that when your child's swimsuit
was wet, you wrapped it up in a towel and put it in your
luggage.'"
Bush adds: "We were in the middle of all the tension of the war
and the recession, and Mark is trying to rejuvenate a brand, build
a voice and reconnect with a consumer base that we had lost along
the way. And this was that perfect light-hearted promotion that
particularly resonated with the boomers who grew up with Holiday
Inn."
GCI had eight weeks to produce thousands of towels and to
communicate the message to franchisees and to the media. The
strategy was to reach out beyond the travel-and-tourism sectors,
and that's why they chose Labor Day to launch the campaign. To
create a big consumer event, 60,000 limited-edition towels were
distributed at Holiday Inn hotels, while Minneapolis-based ad
agency Fallon planned to give away towels on six U.S.
beaches Aug. 30 and to create three ads announcing Towel Amnesty
Day that would run in People, Time, and USA
Today.
To create a pre-launch buzz in early July, towels and vintage
Holiday Inn postcards were sent to the media, including travel
reporters at national print dailies, humor columnists,
broadcast-news programs and syndicated late-night shows.
On Aug. 14, the next phase announced the actual amnesty day,
highlighted its humorous nature and drove consumers to http://www.holiday-inn.com/towels
to tell their towel stories (which later were published in book
form). For every story collected, Holiday Inn donated one dollar to
"Give Kids the World." The official press release was then
distributed to media and travel editors at regional print dailies,
trade publications and online travel trade media. The team also
auctioned five limited-edition towels on eBay.
For Phase Three in late August, a VNR was given away along with
archival footage of the beach giveaways. This went to CNN
Newsource, and it was able to capitalize on digital
distribution that kept content live for three days in newsrooms
across the country. GCI also developed an ANR that was distributed
to nearly 500 AM and FM radio stations.
One of Snyder's initial challenges was that, because of bad
press, franchisees didn't have the sense of pride they had 20 years
ago. Thus, Towel Amnesty Day became as much about restoring lost
pride as it was about restoring lost towels. "You would not believe
how these Holiday Inn owners just jumped up and down, handing out
towels," Crane says. "It worked well as a kind of 'we forgive'
gesture. It helped franchisees have a warm, fuzzy feeling about the
brand."
Towel Amnesty Day generated more than 120 million media
impressions, ranging from a July 15, 2003, story in the New York
Times to a Sept. 4 piece on CNN. Coverage extended into
November, showing up everywhere from Irish radio stations to South
African newspapers. Around 90% of the coverage adopted the humorous
tone of the promotion, positioning the brand as being a forgiving
citizen.
The promotion was just one of the first steps in a long-term
rebranding initiative designed to generate business. "To do that,
you really have to buy in at the property level," Crane says. "When
Mark issued this challenge to restore the brand, he told
franchisees, 'I'm gonna get the phones to ring, and I'm gonna get
the reservations coming, but when they get there, you gotta take
care of them.'"
According to a Delahaye tracking report, Towel Amnesty
Day generated more than double the coverage of any other key rival.
It was also inducted into pop culture by becoming a question on
"Hollywood Squares" in February 2004. In addition, the Web site
garnered more than 91,000 hits and collected 2,581 stories. "And
people are still emailing the company almost two-and-a-half years
after the event," Crane says.
As for how many towels they got back, "it wasn't about returning
towels," he adds. "It was about returning to the memory of your
towel and the warm connection you felt to the brand. Getting people
to think fondly of the brand is the first step in getting them to
make a reservation, and Holiday Inn's revenue per night is up
substantially."
Contacts: Virginia Bush, 770.604.2037, [email protected];
Bill Crane, 404 873 5330, [email protected]
A Brand New Day
In his attempts to update a stodgy brand, Mark Snyder learned
that a vast pool of goodwill existed among consumers about the
Holiday Inn chain. But he also realized that there were a lot of
journalists who covered hotels and hospitality and had their own
Holiday Inn "moments." Virginia Bush, senior PR manager for Holiday
Inn, says, "Before Mark, and before Towel Amnesty Day, we were
doing a lot of PR surrounding promotions. Now I've got a real
business story to tell. We're not just doing promotions that will
keep the brand out there; there's a concerted business strategy
that is moving forward, making a difference, and it has a time
frame and a goal."