Candlewood Suites

Background:
Prior to being purchased by InterContinental Hotels Group, Candlewood Hotel Company owned, operated and franchised Candlewood Suites (www.candlewoodsuites.com) hotel properties throughout the United States. The Candlewood Suites "extended stay" hotels cater to mid-market and upscale business and personal travelers seeking multiple-night stays.

Although guests tended to stay for extended periods of time, the company noticed that occupancy rates would drop somewhat during the weekends and holidays when business travelers typically returned home. To balance out these dips, Candlewood Suites started a marketing program aimed at attracting a unique market segment: grandparents. In 2001, the company launched a "Grandparents Stay Free" program that gave grandparents a free night's stay on any major holiday when they pay for a night's lodging on the day before or after the holiday. All grandparents had to do was show a picture of their grandchild. The program also applied to a grandparent's first-ever visit to a Candlewood Suites location.

Candlewood Hotel Company hired INK inc. in March 2003, in order to publicize the program by garnering a consistent stream of editorial coverage in top-tier national and key regional media outlets.

Strategy/Tactics:
The "Grandparents Stay Free" program had merit in-and-of-itself in that it was (a) a good deal for consumers and (b) targeted a unique demographic. However, the program was already two years old by the time INK was hired and it had been pitched numerous times to relevant media outlets by a previous PR agency. In short, the program was "old news" to the media.

Past experience has taught us that even though a story has already been pitched, it does not mean it was pitched in the best possible way. Often a story is pitched at inappropriate points of time to the wrong people. As a first, INK thoroughly examined every media outlet that CHC wished to get the program coverage in. We scoured articles by hundreds of reporters, freelancers, syndicated columnists, etc. and put together a detailed chart of the person or persons at each media outlet who were most likely to cover such a story.

Next, INK revamped a survey CHC had put together several years prior to that took a humorous approach to asking grandparents whether they would rather stay at a hotel or their child's home while visiting. The survey found that 71 percent of grandparents would rather stay in a hotel than stay with their grandkids. It also produced some comical results, such as a percentage of respondents who indicated they would rather get their belly button pierced than eat their son's or daughter's cooking. We pitched the survey results, along with information about the program itself, to our targeted media list two to four weeks prior to every major holiday or relevant event (e.g., Grandparents Day, May graduation season). Pitching the story around key holidays gave the media a temporal reason to do the story "now," even though it was "old news." This targeted "leave no stone unturned" strategy was extremely successful and generated editorial coverage that reached an audience of more than 23 million.

Results:
American Way Magazine
Arizona Republic
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Belleville, IL News-Democrat
Boston Globe
Chicago Daily Herald
Chicago Tribune (twice)
Columbia (SC) The State
Dayton Daily News
El Paso Times
Grandparentstoday.com
Great Falls (MT) Tribune
Hartford Courant (twice)
Holland (MI) Sentinel
iparenting/travelingtoday.com
KCNC-TV (Denver, CO)
KCTV-TV (Kansas City, MO)
Lakeland (FL) Ledger
Miami Herald
Modesto Bee
MSNBC.com/Frommers
New York Daily News
Orlando Sentinel
Philly.com/Knight Ridder
Portland Oregonian
Providence (RI) Journal
San Diego Union Tribune
San Jose Mercury News (twice)
Smarterliving.com
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Spokane Spokesman Review
St. Petersburg Times
Travel America
travelandleisure.com
USA Today
Wall Street Journal Sunday
Washington Post
Waterloo Courier
Wichita Eagle
WKSF-FM (Asheville, NC)

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