Advertising accolade for Intercontinental Hotels & Resorts

InterContinental Hotels & Resorts was applauded by its peers on Monday, December 16, when it swooped the prestigious Best Advertising Campaign Award 2002 at the annual Hotel Marketing Awards in London.

InterContinental Hotels & Resorts beat competition from a host of other hotels in its sector by demonstrating how it is revitalising and reshaping its brand. The company is seeing the benefit of an ongoing US$1 billion investment by its parent company, Six Continents Hotels, to improve the quality of its hotels and establish the brand in even more key destinations around the globe. Following extensive research in over 25 countries with thousands of guests, frequent travellers and staff, InterContinental Hotels has introduced a series of new initiatives to meet and exceed guests' needs. The launch of the new services and a new identity in September this year was communicated through a multi-million dollar advertising campaign created by advertising agency Leagas Delaney.

Lucinda Semark, Vice President of Marketing, Brands, Six Continents Hotels, Asia Pacific said: "Our research on advertising found that most target customers regard advertising from the premium hotels sector as cliched and un-engaging. They are lost in a sea of polished lobbies and blissfully happy couples. Most of the time respondents can't even name the brand that the ad visuals refer to. In reality, our core guests are cultured travellers who take more than seven business trips a year and want a haven of effortless efficiency and service without ostentation. While these "contemporary classicists" can rarely mix business with pleasure, our marketing now recognises that doesn't mean that business travel can't be pleasurable. All our marketing demonstrates that "we know what it takes" to support our particular customers."

The results of the new campaign were immediate, with early figures showing InterContinental Hotels & Resorts generating its highest occupancy since November 2000 and highest rates since May 2001. Call centre volumes, website hits and qualitative research all indicate InterContinental Hotels & Resorts has now broken away from the "mass" of international business hotels and is clearly differentiating itself as the premium international business hotel.

Ms. Semark added: "The creation of this campaign was a voyage of discovery in which we learned we needed to deliver a service-based rallying cry to unite and inspire our organisation: that our customers needed to be defined on attitudinal, not just demographic, terms and that the only way to engage them was on the basis of an emotional truth."