Remember the commercial where a man saves a nuclear reactor from blowing up and when asked how he knew what to do, he said, "I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night," well, the mid-priced hotel chain announced they are bringing the "stay smart" campaign, (which ran from 1998 until 2008) back, in an effort to return the chain back "to its glory days."
The line was so popular that even Al Gore used it while running for president in 2000.
However, what owners of the chain, InterContinental Hotels Group, didn't like was how the ads outshining its older sister brand Holiday Inn.
But, the gimmick wasn't pulled due to fraction, it was a causality of IHG's, three-year Holiday Inn overhaul that included a complete makeover and the closing of underperforming hotels.
"The rapid market acceptance of Holiday Inn Express began to overshadow its older, tired parent," said Chekitan Dev, an associate professor of marketing and branding at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and author of Hospitality Branding. "As a consequence, Holiday Inn very wisely undertook a multiyear brand rejuvenation program," according to USA Today.
On top of the fact that Holiday Inn Express got drowned out in the process, the market started to get more competitive with travelers turning to better-value chains.
"There are 957 hotels and 90,997 rooms planned or being built for the upper midscale hotel market. Of those, Holiday Inn Express will have 206 hotels and 18,063 rooms," according to Smith Travel Research.
"There's more competition, because there's so much construction," said Bjorn Hanson, dean at New York University's Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, reported USA Today.
What this means is it is the time for Holiday Inn Express to take the lead and shine once more and that is exactly what it is doing.
The new $20 million campaign "gives us the opportunity to break through the clutter and communicate to our guests what the Holiday Inn Express stands for," Balsley said to USA Today.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
