Branding in the Hotel Business
The brand is a name, sign or symbol that identifies products and services. Brand-building is the creation of the brand. Branding is a set of successive measures aimed at creating a holistic and demanded by the consumer image of the product or service. Robert Blanchard, former P&G executive said: "A brand is the personification of a product, service, or even entire company" (Mootee, 2004).
With the help of branding, managers should attract consumers to the hotel, and for that purpose they need to understand what they can give to the consumer. Here managers need to understand what differs their hotel from others, and if there is nothing special, they have to create something.
Branding includes work on market research, product positioning, the creation of the name (brand name), a slogan, a system of visual and verbal identification, the use of identification and communication media, reflecting and broadcasting a brand idea (White, 2016). Price, brand, and feedbacks influence consumers' decisions (Horwell, 2016). The brand is not just a technology is a whole philosophy of life, not only the product, but also the company as a whole. The company must comply with all the values that it wants to offer customers through its brand. The service quality impacts on brand image (Tate, 2014).
In the last two decades, branding became very important in the hotel sector (Kapferer, 2008). Sometimes it's played the key role in the prosperity of hotels (O'Neill and Mattila, 2009). Nowadays, it is not enough to create a brand, hotels in the UK should build more personal relationships with guests (Collins, 2013; Kusume, 2015). David Collins believes that "soft" brands have greater future, such brands have higher average daily rate and revenue per available room than "hard" branded hotels (Collins, 2014). Allowing guest feedbacks in media, hoteliers take the right steps to show that brand values of the hotel are respected (Tate, 2014).
Brands should be interesting and individualized, to contact on multiple levels of feelings, and to be a reminder of a nice experience. Brands should not disappoint consumers. Therefore, the brand should leave pleasant feelings (Vaid 2003; Benson, 2012).
Sensory branding as the approach is quite simple. Hotels have been using it for a long time. They use special air flavourings, unusual materials for the decoration of rooms, and original background music. Each of these features is remembered by guests, attracts them to the hotel, and becomes the subject of stories for friends. Scientists are sure that 75% of emotions are made of what we smell (SO Creative, 2011).
The problem is that many hoteliers are using sensor branding spontaneously, losing the integrity of the brand perception by guests. Many hotels have worthy ideas and concepts, but their implementation is often "flat" and one-sided.
Hotels should be very attentive and delicate. Customers should not notice and pay attention to sensor branding, it should be natural, comfortable and intuitively attractive. The research of reviews on The May Fair Hotel shows that people react differently on the same scent: "the big detractor with this hotel is the overpowering perfume scent machine they have in the lobby", another client thinks that “The aroma in the reception area is amazing!” (Tripadvisor.co.uk, 2016). The volume of the scent should be balanced.
Martin Lindstrom said: “The future of hotel branding is when there are no logos, no advertisements blasting, but I can just feel I’m there” (Stellin, 2007).
Brand loyalty is an important condition for stability of the enterprise on the market and its competitiveness factor (Benson, 2011). Sensory branding allows to create an unforgetable brand image. Successful colour interior design attracts visitors: the sound unconsciously affects the decisions and actions of any person, tactile sensations are directly related to the quality of the product, aroma marketing allows hotel to stand out among competitors and emphasizes its style (Hultén, 2015). In addition, the use of sensory marketing tools generates certain reflex - a clear association of melodies, sounds, smells, colours with certain brands. It allows to express and emphasize the value of the company, its emotional component. It is a good idea to combine hotel brand with another well known brand and Omni Hotels had a successful promotion with Starbucks Coffee (Elliott, 2007). It is necessary to conduct a detailed analysis prior to implementation of sensory branding as there is a high probability of mistakes due to the individual characteristics of mental and demographic criteria of target groups. In outdoor advertising hotels should consider a different measure of colours fading. Scents are risky to use with a target audience consisting of different age and gender representatives. The sound, decor, scents and tactile sensations should represent one overall concept and complement each other to enhance the effect.
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