Roles: Brand Strategy; Customer Experience Strategy
Our client, a global hotel owner and operator, set out to reposition and renovate an aging property in a popular Washington D.C. neighborhood. We crafted a new brand platform, targeting an audience that included the hotel’s existing customer base of loyal clients, as well as a younger generation of travelers. We also envisioned a customer experience journey, from booking to check-out, to create a unique offering that draws on the legacy of the historic property and takes advantage of it's prime location in D.C.
Based on customer data and qualitative research, we developed a psychographic profile for the target customer.
With our target customer in mind, we crafted a new brand position envisioning a destination that offers guests access to the fabric of D.C. life, amongst like-minded individuals. We defined brand attributes that we then translated into activation strategies for partnerships, synergistic tenants, interior experience, and programming.
One critical customer insight was that our target guests, whether traveling on business or pleasure, often mix work and leisure into their trips. They need to shift frequently between the two throughout the day. We proposed that the hotel provide a variety of customer experience zones that transform to meet different need states through the day, week, and seasons.
To deliver on the brand promise of providing the guest a D.C. address along with access to local life and culture, we made a number of programming recommendations including: 1) a residential wing of rental apartment units 2) high-end spa and health club tenant offering membership discounts to residents and guests 3) on-site programming linked to local retailers and nearby farmer's market