GLOBAL REPORT—When is a name more than just a name? When it’s a new hotel brand identity, according to marketing and branding experts.
That premise has been on display in recent weeks during a spate of hotel branding announcements that include, among others, Orient-Express Hotels Limited’s rebranding as Belmond and the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group’s launch of Radisson Red and the Quorvus Collection.
Those names weren’t chosen for the sake of convenience, sources said. Rather, they reflect the offerings of the inherent guest experience, evoking certain emotions, memories or subconscious allusions to other times and places.
Creating a new brand name is as much art as science, according to Todd Leach, group account director for Dedica Group, which specializes in creative brand solutions for the hospitality sector.
“I don’t think there’s any set process,” he explained.
The first step usually involves some form of data mining, either qualitative or quantitative or both. The goal is to determine where and how the new hotel or brand fits into the competitive landscape.
For executives at Orient-Express, the end result was the stark realization that its existing identity was neither resonating with guests nor threading together its disparate portfolio of luxury hotel, rail and river cruise experiences, according to Ralph Aruzza, chief sales and marketing officer, during a call with investors.
The team at Carlson Rezidor was focused not so much on its existing brands but rather new opportunities—namely in a product that would target the emergent millennial traveler and another that could leverage the changing face of luxury.
Name game
When an understanding of the end product or goal is firmly established, the next step is to brainstorm a complementary identity, Leach said.
Orient-Express considered as many as 650 names in this early phase, Aruzza said.
Leach said there’s no magic number; the most important thing is to keep it manageable for key decision makers. It helps to group like names together in clusters, or what he called “pathways.”
One path might include names grounded in Latin, for instance. Another might include common terms evoking a sense of nature. Another still might feature entirely made-up concoctions that simply sound good.
Made-up brand names typically prove the most challenging, Leach said.
“You’re not only trying to get a consumer on with a new brand, you’re trying to get them on with a completely new word,” he said.
That’s in part why InterContinental Hotels Group chose a name grounded in reality for its Even Hotels brand.
“The name ‘Even’ speaks to the balances we face in life and to the balances we make possible when traveling—revitalization and relaxation, health and indulgence,” Adam Glickman, the company’s brand head, wrote in an email.
“Through our research, we found that more than 17 million wellness-minded travelers feel they ‘fall off the wagon’ when they travel, which is a point of frustration for them. Even Hotels serves as a wellness partner, helping them maintain their routine and keep that sense of balance they told us they seek when away from home.”
Orient-Express and Carlson Rezidor took a similarly grounded approach. The former’s Belmond is derived from Latin, meaning “beautiful world.” The latter’s Quorvus, meanwhile, is based on Corvus, a small constellation “where five of the brightest stars light the way,” said Gordon McKinnon, executive VP and chief branding officer for the company, during the brand’s formal presentation at Carlson Rezidor’s annual conference.
Radisson Red was ever more straightforward, he said later in an interview.
“We already understood the space. We already understood the audience it would have to talk to. From that comes a belief in an opportunity to do brand in a vertical segmentation but in a way that people actually understand them,” McKinnon said, adding such tiers are popular in the fashion industry.
A notable hotel example is Accor’s Ibis megabrand, which includes Ibis, Ibis Styles and Ibis Budget.
The tiered approach also leverages Radisson’s decades-long track record and noteworthy brand awareness. “That’s a value … you’d be wrong not to take advantage of,” McKinnon said.
“That’s not to say that we didn’t consider the strong possibility of not calling it Radisson at all and making it an independent brand,” he added.
Before making the final choice, sources said it’s important to conduct extensive testing for both guest receptiveness and also cultural sensitive—that is, making sure a word in one language doesn’t mean something entirely different in another.
Rollout
Brands don’t promote themselves. Effective market penetration requires coordinated marketing campaigns, sources said.
Orient-Express is investing $15 million in its Belmond rollout, which begins officially 10 March.
“We will establish Belmond by investing $5 million in enhanced promotional and marketing initiatives during its first year, with an additional $10 million over subsequent years,” Aruzza said in a news release. “This investment will include new website platforms, re-engineered customer relationship management tools, and the company’s first ever large-scale print and online media advertising campaign.”
The process, no matter the marketing spend driving it, takes time, McKinnon said.
“The challenge in the world we live in now … where broadcast is becoming more and more difficult in a mass market just because of the cost, you really have to schedule or build awareness within the markets you want to build awareness in,” he said.
Any rollout often faces inertia in the early going. Whereas Radisson Red was built on a known commodity, the Quorvus name is new to most ears.
