Choice drops case to focus on brands

Brandweek, April 13, 1998 by Shannon Stevens

Choice Hotels International is scrapping its 14-year-old, trademark umbrella advertising campaign featuring celebrities popping out of suitcases, as the company launches a divergent ad strategy giving each of its lodging brands a distinct creative approach, starting with a $17.3 million Comfort campaign breaking April 22.

New Comfort advertising, via Gray, Kirk Vansant, Baltimore, will take a "slice of life" approach, one targeting the leisure traveler and one business, under the tagline, "It's more than a room. It's Comfort."

In coming months new creative will hit the airwaves for Choice's Clarion, Quality and Econolodge divisions as well, as Choice implements a companywide plan to clarify each lodging brand's identity and better target the business and leisure travelers who frequent those hotels.

"The suitcase was a promotional type of marketing: offer a deal, make it available at any brand," said Betsy O'Rourke, senior vice president of marketing services for Choice. "The new positioning is all about value: getting more than you expect for the price you pay."

Comfort got $14 million in media last year, Econo Lodge and Quality Inn $7.3 million and $7.5 million, respectively, according to Competitive Media Reporting. The company also operates the Clarion, Sleep Inn, Rodeway Inn and MainStay brands, which will also get their own programs under substantially smaller budgets.

The Comfort campaign will run on national network and cable TV, heavily around news shows, as well as college football come fall. The business traveler spot will get heavy rotation this month and next, with leisure ads getting more media weight this summer. Currently 55% of Comfort customers are on vacation, and Choice hopes to bolster its business guests enough to even that out.

The leisure-themed spot shows a family in the morning with dad trying to get his wife and kids packed and out the door, but they're slow to respond. He leaves them to head for the car but himself ends up dallying at Comfort's continental breakfast spread (a big selling point of the chain proffering bagels, hot and cold cereals, versus the box of donuts and coffee the average mid-level chain serves), where his family, now looking to load up, finally catches him stuffing his face.

Also to lure families, Comfort will offer a coupon book with $1,000 worth of discounts on brands including Alamo, Hertz, Merry Maids, Hard Rock Cafe, Brunswick Bowling and Pearl Vision as well as theme park passes and movie passes. Additionally, kids will stay free from June 15 through July, an offer it will make with a print run, the brand's first, in Purade magazine.

The business spot shows the exterior of a Comfort at sunrise with the sound of an in-room television anchor giving the farm report. The camera comes into the room and shows a tired business man with a "Where am IT' look getting up and around. He goes downstairs to the continental breakfast with ESPN on in the background and cheers up over his coffee, food and conversation with another traveler about last night's game.

Another component of its efforts to boost its business traveler stays, Comfort by year-end or early 1999 will roll out Comfort Plus, rooms with coffee pots, long telephone cords and desk and-chair setups.