SHA546: Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media

The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media

Course Project

Instructions:

Complete this project and submit it to your instructor. See the assignment page for
information about the grading rubric. Do not hesitate to contact your instructor if you
have any questions about the project.

This course project consists of four parts, each of which corresponds to the foundational
elements of marketing a hospitality brand through digital media that you will learn
throughout the course. This project will give you an opportunity to create a basic digital
media marketing strategy for your organization. If you are not currently affiliated with an
organization, you may choose one with which you are familiar, or you may base your
responses on The McCormick.

As you complete this project, you will (1) evaluate a brand promise, (2) align and refine
that brand promise, (3) integrate your brand across channels, and (4) project your brand.

Complete each project part as you progress through the course. Wait to submit the
project until all four parts are complete. Begin your course project by completing Part
One below.

1
© 2017 eCornell. All rights reserved. All other copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and logos are the sole property of their respective owners.
 SHA546: Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media
The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Part One: Evaluate Your Brand Promise

In this part of your project, you will evaluate critical elements of your organization’s brand
and its brand promise from both a business and customer perspective. Base your
responses on course content and specific examples and details pertaining to your
hospitality brand.

Instructions:
1. Articulate whom you are going to evaluate.

Name and Describe Your Hospitality Organization

Name your The McCormick Hotel

organization

Describe your The McCormick Hotel will be a premier luxury lodging and
organization meeting venue located in the Inner Harbor district of Baltimore,
Maryland, USA.
The McCormick will offer “the best of both worlds,” as it will
possess a boutique-like feel with full service facilities in a prime
downtown location. It will boast modern amenities, including a
fitness center, outdoor pool, a spa— and immediate access to a
vibrant and interesting set of neighborhoods to explore.
Brand Promise “An independently managed hotel that
provides guests with extraordinary personalized service in
an atmosphere of historic grandeur with modern facilities”

2. Review the list of characteristics listed below. Choose at least five among those listed
that relate to your organization. For each characteristic selected, describe your brand
from a business and/or customer perspective. Mention trademarks, symbols, names, or
other business characteristics and customer-related features or examples as you enter
your organization’s information in the chart below.

Describe Your Brand

Customers Leisure individual – Business individual – Business Groups - Events

Quality Boutique hotel with full service - luxuriously furnished and finished

Value Mixing a sense of the past with contemporary comforts

Attributes

Associations
2
© 2017 eCornell. All rights reserved. All other copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and logos are the sole property of their respective owners.
 SHA546: Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media
The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Emotions Adventure – Exploring the city – Authentic - Comfortable

Meanings

Experiences Enjoying the events in the area and the scent of historic city in
luxurious taste.

3. Now you will explore your organization’s brand promise as you complete the grid
below.

Define and Evaluate Your Brand Promise

State your brand “An independently managed hotel that provides guests with
promise extraordinary personalized service in an atmosphere of historic
grandeur with modern facilities”

State whether or According the brand promise and the competitors in the area the
not your brand promise has to be adjusted as it is too generic and could be
promise should be replaced easily.
modified

3
© 2017 eCornell. All rights reserved. All other copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and logos are the sole property of their respective owners.
 SHA546: Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media
The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Part Two: Align and Refine Your Brand Promise

In this part of the course project, you will assess your market and key market segments.
Based on your market, you will recommend changes to your organization’s brand
promise.
Instructions:

1. Review your answers in Part One of this course project.

2. Reflect on the marketing fundamentals and related concepts reviewed in this
course as you assess your organization and its competition in the marketplace.

Complete the following grid.

In thinking of your competition, how Current brand promise is too general and it
does your hospitality experience differ easily could be replaced by any competitor.
from others? What makes your
What give the unique experience is the
hospitality experience unique for luxurious authentic furniture and F&B
customers? outlets.

In general, what changes have occurred In terms of Tourism it the area continues to
in your market within the last few show signs of improvement and the area is
years? facing strong improvement in business
travelers

How has your organization responded The hotel is just new and they consider
to those changes? offering something unique by mixing history
with modern.
In addition the hotel planned to get a very
good share from Business sector; aside
from comfortable rooms the hotel has a
very good inventory of meeting space and
it has the flexibility to fit either small or big
groups

Has your customer base changed and I will talk about the area itself; yes the pace
if so, how? increased in all segments leisure and
business.

What steps do you take to identify your The steps is to study the customer needs &
key market segments? What additional wants and compare it with what I am
steps could you take? offering and adjust whatever needed to
ensure that I am fulfilling their needs and
wants.
The additional step to be taken is to check
what the competitor are offering to same
segment and how I can compete them to
get my share.

4
© 2017 eCornell. All rights reserved. All other copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and logos are the sole property of their respective owners.
 SHA546: Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media
The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Recommend changes to your brand promise

In the space below, craft a recommendation that outlines potential changes to

your brand promise, steps you would like to take to reassess your target
customers, and how you will use the information gathered in your marketing
strategy. Be sure to include course concepts and digital media implications.

As the current brand promise is too generic and easily could be replaced specially
because of a lot of competitors in the area, so I would prefer to adjust the brand promise.
In order to ensure that the brand promise gives the correct message to the clients I need
to check below
- What is customers’ needs and wants
- What I can do to meet their needs and wants
- How I can fulfill this needs and wants in outstanding way competing with my
competitors.
So to answer above question I need to check customer reviews about the area and the
competitor’s hotels in this area using social media such as Tripadvisor, facebook pages,
twitter… etc
Based in the data that already offered the new brand promise would be

“Taste the Real Baltimore: The McCormick Hotel”

5
© 2017 eCornell. All rights reserved. All other copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and logos are the sole property of their respective owners.
 SHA546: Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media
The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Part Three: Integrating Your Digital Media Across Channels

As you formulate your marketing strategy, it’s essential to integrate your brand across
digital channels. Having a consistent brand message is key. In this part of the project you
will assess how your brand is integrated across digital channels.

Instructions:

Review the list of digital channels listed below and identify whether or not each channel
is linked to your organization’s brand promise. Then make note of how any channels are
linked or integrated with one another. In summary, outline any recommendations you
have to further integrate your brand promise across digital channels.

Digital Channels Tied to Brand Promise: Integrated with or linked to:

Brand Website No Facebook & Instgram

Google (search) Yes Brand website, Trip advisor, OTA

Facebook Yes, but very poor Instgram, Brand website

YouTube NA

Instagram Yes Brand website

Pinterest NA

Twitter NA

Other:

How could your organization further integrate your brand promise across
digital channels?

I choose one of the hotels I visited couple of years ago.

The hotel is very poor in Social Media and brand website, You can’t get direct
message about the brand promise the only message you will get that it is a resort to
stay at in your vacation, nothing more.
The hotel has a lot of potentials but all online marketing needs to be adjusted or to
build it from scratch.
Brand website describe the hotel by its facilities only, there is no specific words
assigned to be used for the brand (for example Le Meridien use Sophisticated as
one of their brand words); the content is very poor and all photos doesn’t have any
human being at all which gives a feedback as no one stays in that hotel.
Photos in facebook and instgram is way better than the brand website.

6
© 2017 eCornell. All rights reserved. All other copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and logos are the sole property of their respective owners.
 SHA546: Marketing the Hospitality Brand through Digital Media
The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Part Four: Project Your Brand

This part of your project is designed to help you gain experience in developing marketing
activities that promote the brand across the digital media landscape.

Instructions:

Based on your organization (or The McCormick Hotel), identify a marketing objective,
then develop a consistent set of marketing activities to promote some event (e.g., a
festival, a sporting event, a conference, or even a new service being offered at the hotel)
related to your objective. Your marketing methods should include: (1) a promotional offer
for display on the website, (2) a YouTube video associated with the offer or event, and
(3) a Facebook contest to be launched on the property’s own Facebook page. Some
examples might be a romantic weekend getaway in the Baltimore Harbor area or lodging
associated with some forthcoming event in the Baltimore area. (See
http://baltimore.org/events-exhibitions.)

Event Marketing Objective

Family Event for children

Define
your Link here
marketing
objective

In the matrix below, describe the marketing activities you recommend to reach your
marketing objective and state how they reflect the brand promise of your organization (or
The McCormick.)

Promotional Offer
Event YouTube Video Facebook Contest
on Website
Special offer for Make a video combining A post in the page
families as kids stay with videos from same gives an overview
Descriptio for free with daily 01 event done before with about the event with
n free fresh juice for one of hotel’s meeting links to the video on
the kids room which has same set- you tube and the offer
up of the event. in hotel brand website
Tied to the brand The video combines a It will use same
promise as it will video from previous event language of the hotel
Tie-in to
allow to explore the in the city and how the and same data used in
Brand
events in the city hotel interacts within its youtube
Promise
and the signature premises.
drink of the hotel

7
© 2017 eCornell. All rights reserved. All other copyrights, trademarks, trade names, and logos are the sole property of their respective owners.