Grabbing the limelight
LIKE a good scandal, humour appeals to most potential guests, so while the former may not be your usualselling point, there is plenty of scope forraising a laugh when marketing your establishment.
Humour could be your best secret weapon, whether you run a small bistro in Banff or a country house hotel in Cornwall. It has been a major plank in the Newcastle Copthorne's strategy of stamping its identity on theTyneside hotel map in its first couple of years under the guidance of its erstwhile general manager Bill Paisley, now general manager at the Glasgow Hilton.
Special promotions for recession-weary Germans, drought-hit southerners and stressed out executives are some of the hotel's most recent marketing ploys. Likewise Nick Swinscoe, managing partner at Cumbria's Appleby Manor hotel, takes tongue-in-cheek promotions quite seriously.
Whisky passports and hangover packs back up a popular malt whisky tasting two day break. A choice of 71 varieties beckon to be gulped and if any participant stays conscious to number 50, a free bottle of malt awaits. To help participants recover, each receives a specially prepared "hangover relief pack" containing indigestion tablets, brow cool tissues, shaky hand shaving plasters and a recovery mask.
A slice of Danish humour is behind antics at Stirling's 18-room Terraces Hotel where Scandinavian owner Lars Christiansen admits to being "hopeless at marketing" despite 86% occupancy and a reputation in the town for being a hotelier with a sense of fun.
A dinner booking requesting a table for two will often result in just that - minus the chairs! The red beret-clad Dane is also known to jokingly embarrass his guests and to even manually carry them out of the building.
Although he admits that such capers are confined to those who either know him or of him, it does occasionally go wrong. A woman guest who was pacing up and down the lobby was asked by Christiansen in a light hearted tone whether she was in the right place.
The woman later inferred that her motives for being in the hotel were under suspicion and was heard complaining to her fellow diners. Christiansen then had to defuse the situation.
As a stranger to Stirling, you might learn of the Terraces Hotel as a bus passenger. For £120 per month, Christiansen sponsors one bus which is bedecked in the hotel's colours and logo and acts as a mobile advertisement.
It also means that passengers sometimes find themselves being treated to bowls of soup or slices of cake courtesy of the Terraces Hotel. The vehicle can also be hired out for special events by the hotel or its guests.
Paragon of marketing is the Dunbartonshire property, Rosslea Hall Hotel which last year won the 1993 Scottish Marketing Award in the small companies category, organised by Scottish Industrial & Trade Exhibitions.
The lochside hotel offers over 40 special interest breaks ranging from murder mystery and whisky tastings to off-road driving and barber shop singing. Its theme breaks portfolio also extends to weddings, where the hotel will organise a medieval wedding reception complete with entertainment from Mary Queen of Scots and her courtiers, jesters and musicians.
But before the hotel carried out marketresearch in advance of drawing up marketing plans, one event highlighted the gap between a successful launch and any sincere demand.
A themed tapas evening complete with flamenco dancers, Spanish speaking guide and free food and drink proved a great crowd puller. But in the following weeks, the Iberian novelty wore off and the initiative was scuppered.
At the Telford Hotel, Golf and Country Club, two Chinese-themed banquets proved to be sell-out successes, creating a 70% profit and a high profile in the local region. The same hotel particularly relishes providing unusual themed programmes for incentive and conference trade.
One favourite is to split residential sales teams into four groups, equip them with mountain bikes and compasses and a circuitous cross country route. General manager Philip Brook assures that this is an excellent way to encourage repeat business.
Well-known for its ability to provoke a smile among journalists and guests is the Hyatt Hotels & Resorts London press and publicity office.
Socks, curry powder and packets of tea wrapped in Hyatt notepaper have landed on editorial desks across the capital in the past year drawing attention to a new hotel or a specific event.
In the recent past, the US-based chain has promoted chocoholic breaks at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham, featuring limitless amounts of the item, visits to Cadbury's World Museum together with a free cake, recipe card and souvenir mugs.
There has also been a special ceremonial package on offer at Hyatt's London townhouse hotel, the Lowndes. This was geared to cater for an increasing number of guests who were there in order to receive awards from Buckingham Palace. Limousine service, curtseying lessons and complimentary bottles of Champagne were all included.
Jenevora Swann in the Hyatt press office says: "Being a five-star chain, you can't do this sort of thing too often and you can't really go too far because it wouldn't fit with the classy image. Yet the public does seem to love any touch of humour and breaks such as the chocoholics one go down a storm."
Of course, initiatives need not be confined to the hotel. As Peter Flynn, marketing manager of a group of three independently run French-style restaurants in Surrey has shown, the public (and the restaurant) thrives on a constant stream of new ideas.
Word-of-mouth marketing, goodwill and informality are Flynn's watchwords as he has successfully wooed a younger clientele to the restaurants with two for the price of one deals, Christmas cards with £10 meal vouchers and percentage discounts. And it seems to have worked. Across the three mid-Surrey outlets, he has seen a 50% increase in customer numbers in the past year.
Creativity and a sense of fun combined with some focused market research are the prerequisites to getting yourself noticed. o
