"It should indeed be a great business for a durable" barrage "that protects the return on capital invested." – Warren Buffet's Letter to Shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway's 2007 Annual Report
Warren Buffet has been using the metaphor for the "castle revolving" for years to describe a company that has effective and sustainable strategic differentiation. These companies enjoy greater profits than their competitors and are able to get rid of competitors and increase market share.
But how to effectively differentiate? After working with a number of advertising agencies for many years and watching countless people work, I can tell you that many marketing communications professionals are not answering this question. Most of the ads are designed to be funny, touching, surprising, shocking and sometimes artistic, but are less than memorable or effective in differentiating.
Let's look at two different advertising campaigns that effectively differentiate and one does not. The Holiday Inn Express and LaQuinta both belong to the "Limited Service" category. Relatively low proportion of a great location, clean, comfortable rooms, some basic facilities, can take part in a point program and a continental breakfast.
The Holiday Inn Express (HIE), a division of the Intercontinental Hotels Group, launched a reclamation campaign a few years ago in which their properties were placed as "smart" choices for travelers. In a very memorable ad campaign, actors are represented with high-risk, expert tasks such as modern surgery and survival instructions are called upon by a frightened hiker facing a grizzly bear. For each sticker, the actor's actor creditor has another character, eg – you are a surgeon? Or "Are you a car park?" Stb., And the protagonist always answers: "No, but last night I was on a Holiday Inn Express."
This stunt line went to the US folk lexicon. In the 2008 presidential election campaign, Mike Huckabee joked with disbelief: "I may not be an expert in having people in foreign policy, but last night I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express." Not long ago in a flight I heard two flight attendees talking about the active substance of Tylenol and when I explained that ibuprofen was included, one of them asked me if I was a doctor. Guess how I answered.
The Holiday Inn Express television ads are smart, but more importantly, they feel good about the brand. Obviously, no one becomes "smarter" when staying in the Holiday Inn Express, but it actually reflects the fact that it is a smart decision to have their customers. They show that they "get it": every businessman feels intelligent. That's good, but what really distinguishes the campaign is how customers feel about the Holiday Inn franchise: we want to associate the brand with the advertisements because of the humorous mood, the obvious understanding of our needs and the feeling that it's fun and friendly.
La Quinta has recently been redesigned and they are also running a number of television commercials. At one place, a middle-aged man talks to a bed in a suit as if he and the mattress were just sharing a "night stand". At the end of the scene he turns to the camera and says "La Quinta" instead of the voice of a native Spanish speaker. All of their current advertisements end with this verbal reminder (a spot with the Latin voice).
Holiday Inn Express uses the "Stay Smart" slogan. La Quinta slogan: "Wake Up on the Bright Side". The two campaigns have similar goals: appealing to business travelers looking for a good value for money in a non-flat accommodation. But the Holiday Inn Express campaign is far better in the La Quinta campaign.
First of all, HIE advertisements successfully create a slogan that is repeated and become part of the country's lexical. Countless people said, "No, but I stayed at Holiday Inn Express last night," because that's a clever, funny expression. This also means remembering the sponsorship of advertising: no doubt who created the site or the slogan because the advertiser's name is part of the "joke". This is a vital achievement, and it is also difficult and rare. In the very funny online ad slot for the campaign, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-PzDk_brV0 . We note that this small virus marketing approaches nearly 500,000 hits.
No one in La Quinta ads says "Wake up on the bright side". Instead, it will simply be added to the screen at the end of the site – the typical "late identification" tactic that agencies like but obviously does not work. Finally, the attempt to create verbal mnemonics is the unique sounding "La Quinta", which has been renamed at every venue at the end. But, unlike HIE, this is not funny, it can not be turned into jokes, and will never be idiomatic. You can see the "One Night Stand" that I wrote here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfhKmr6L4u4 .
Second, the Holiday Inn Express hits a bull "in the eye of trying to create emotional contact with the crowd, while La Quinta lacks the mark. Every HIE site is the central player who finally says" … But I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night ", is attractive, something surprising and pleasing, and it clearly shows the unusual and unexpected shape." Smart ", which starts to smile and shakes, has a disarming, self-satisfied quality for creative that is very inviting and All of the positive emotions are packed in the HIE brand because they are both the source of good feelings and the heart of the slogan that is the punch line. La Quinta spots are not terrible – the brand has been updated and claims That the attributes are good value – but the creative just entertains it and it does not do it very effectively. I do not know about you, but you do not have to Who takes pictures of a middle-aged man who is on a night stand.
Continuing the topic of bad taste, in another advert Supremostza the words: "Lost Your Company's Largest Account" before presenting the silver lining: "Your boss finally remembers his name." Obviously, this is to reinforce a slogan to help you: "Wake up on the bright side", but the idea of losing a big bill is such a huge negative that it is not really something to associate with their brand
.
Finally, Holiday Inn Express ads successfully create positive emotions around the brand, are very memorable and the sponsor is firmly and clearly bound to the message. The fact that its slogan is the lexical part of the nation highlights the clarity of the campaign. They feel comfortable holding one of them because they are a brand they love to take into their lives. La Quinta ads are making another attempt to create funny commercials that do not send an effective or complex message and contain no effective emotional hooks. This is a less exemplary textbook for an advertising agency that proves that it can be smart without understanding how to make a commercial that actually sells something.
As we know, in 2008, the hospitality industry was terrible. Climate change fuel prices, followed by the current recession, broke many players in the travel sector. In this context, the Holiday Inn Express has increased to the available location. Since La Quinta is a private company, I do not have access to the numbers, but I'm very surprised if they're acting too. As long as there is no better approach to brand distinction, I think that mediocre performance will be invested.
To find out how to effectively distinguish a brand, I advise you to read our latest White Paper: The Ultimate Guide to Positioning and Differentiating Your Brand. In this document you will find the laddering, a proven approach to creating advertising messages that will create the kind of emotional hook for the Holiday Inn Express Campaign. We explain that many of the major brands, such as Jif and Duracell, have been able to leverage effective positioning with huge market and margin benefits. This is an indispensable guide for those who want to create a competitive advantage.
Source by Ian Heller