Ms. Knutson

Guest Service / Customer Experience Mgmt

Love Makes the Profits Come In

By Bonnie Knutson, Professor, The School of Hospitality Business/MSU

When was the last time you ever heard someone say...

"Man, do I ever love my gas station!"

"WOW, I can't tell you how much I love my telephone company!" Or even...

"I sure do love doing business with your company!"

Chances are you have rarely - if ever - heard love associated with any business, let alone the hotel business. The "L" word is too warm, too fuzzy, and too mushy. Business has to be hard-nosed, bottom line oriented. Right? Well, maybe that has been true in the past. But all that is beginning to change because consumers have changed. They are far more sophisticated and more demanding; they are no longer content just be satisfied. Your guests want to be WOW-ed. They want a great hotel experience. They want a relationship with the hotel brand to who they give their business. They want to love you.

More than a decade ago, marketing consultant, Chip Bell, wrote a best seller called, Customer Love. In it, he argued that it is not enough for customers to like a business; it is not enough for them to be satisfied with the quality of the product and the service delivering it. Being satisfied with the experience - i.e. liking it - is not sufficient to generate repeat business or positive radial (word-or-mouth) advertising. In fact, some research shows that 85% of people who say they are satisfied doing business with you will still leave for your competition. That is scary for any hotelier in this highly competitive economic environment.

Guests need to love your hotel experience, love your hotel brand, and love doing business with your hotel. In other words, there must be a passionate connection between your guest and your hotel; your brand must have emotional power; it must connect at the heart level, not just the head level. Mr. Bell was right, but he was also a little ahead of his time. According to a recent article in Fast Company , brands that can engage people emotionally sell more and command prices 20-100% higher than their competitors do. In other words, marketing love is profitable, and for a hotel, it can significantly increase REVPAR.

Recently, some firms have begun to see the wisdom in the concept of customer love. More books tout the concept, business magazines feature articles with the love word in the title, and businesses are starting to let the love message tiptoe into their advertising messages. In 2004, for example, McDonald's launched its "I'm lovin'it?" campaign. Automotive giant, Honda, kicked off its interactive "It must be love" promotion asking owners to send in photos showing how they resemble their Hondas. And Jenn-Air developed the tagline, "for the love of cooking," as part of its marketing strategy.

One of the reasons that businesses have been reluctant to jump on the love bandwagon is that it is hard to measure emotions. And, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. But this barrier may be coming to an end. Kevin Roberts, CEO of the giant global advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, has partnered with a British company, QIQ International Limited, to develop a tool that quantifies the emotional power of a brand. They call it lovemark and measure it on a two-axis grid: respect (vertical) and love (horizontal). The respect dimension embraces performance, trust, and reputation, while the love dimension embodies mystery, sensuality, and intimacy. (www.lovemarks.com)

Generally, products that are found in the lower left hand quadrant (low respect, low love) are commodities such as pork bellies or oil. (Do you want your hotel to be in the same category as a pork belly?) Those in the lower right hand quadrant (high love, but low respect) are faddish in nature and have a short marketing window of opportunity. Pet rocks, Lo-Carb, and Nehru jackets come to mind. Brands in the upper left quadrant (low love, high respect) seem to be more of the so-called stable, solid brands. They may not be glamorous, but they have staying power. Basics such as Tide, Cracker Barrel, and Rice Krispies may be here.

The goal for any brand is, of course, to be positioned in the upper right quadrant (high respect, high love), which combine to form lovemarks. Found here are such brands as Disney World, Starbucks, Ritz Carlton, or a favorite local pizzeria. For hotel marketers, the good news is that it is possible to reposition a hotel brand to a higher quadrant by keying in on the dimension of love or respect that drives guest-buying decisions. For example, Saatchi & Saatchi helped reposition General Mill's Cheerios brand by simply replacing the bowl on the package with a heart and refocusing the advertising message to center more on the emotional connection than on the cereal's product benefits.

Once you discover your hotel's position on the love-respect axes, you can dissect the two scores to determine the emotional levels connecting your brand to your guest. Once identified, you can then develop innovative strategies either to retain its high respect-high love lovemark position, or to reposition it from its existing location to the ultimate goal of being in the upper right quadrant, where emotional connections are made and guest love is established. But remember, only your guests can decide where your hotel is positioned - i.e. its lovemark status.

Your bottom line will thank you.

Bonnie J. Knutson is a professor in The School of Hospitality Business in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. She is an authority on emerging lifestyle trends and innovative marketing. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and on PBS and CNN. She has had numerous articles in industry, business, and academic publications. Bonnie is a frequent speaker for executive education as well as business and industry meetings, workshops, and seminars. Dr. Knutson is also editor of the Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing. Ms. Knutson can be contacted at 517-353-9211 or drbonnie@msu.edu Extended Bio...

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