Embassy Suites Spins $2.5 Million Web
SPIDER-MAN IS COMING to a hotel near you. To get kids jazzed up about the new Spider-Man 2 movie coming to theaters this summer — and to help fill up its hotel rooms — Embassy Suites Hotels is handing its young guests a Spider-Man 2 Web Pack filled with goodies at check in.
Some 100,000 web-lined packs are at the ready, each of which includes a Spider-Man non-flash camera with film; a six-inch Spider-Man plush toy with suction cups; a Toss-and-Catch Game, including two Velcro paddles with three plush bean bags; a Spider-Man Treasure Keeper with a caribeener attached to a rubber coin holder that contains Spider-Man stickers; and a puzzle picture cube featuring Spider-Man images.
The $2.5 million promotion began last month, and runs Thursday through Sunday nights at over 170 hotels in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Latin America. Two children per family are eligible to et packs; additional packs can be purchased for $10, through mid-September.
Embassy Suites believes that kids have lots of influence over parents’ buying decisions and it has tapped into that persuasive charm for the last three years since developing the Summer Pack Trip program and partnering with Nickelodeon. That pack offered co-branded items for children aged six to 11. This year, however, the hotel chain sought to reach a slightly older audience — tweens and teens — and turned to the daring and romantic Spidey.
“On vacations it’s pretty clear that if you can appeal to kids maybe they can influence their parents,” says John Lee, VP-brand marketing for Embassy Suites Hotels. “This picture has wide appeal. We felt that was going to be a home run for us.”
Full-page teaser ads started last month in USA Today. A direct mail campaign dropped to 75,000 previous summer guests and subscribers to Nickelodeon magazine. A broad-based online campaign includes lots of banners and flash. And at the embassysuites.com Web site, Spidey takes over the entire home page for a few seconds when visitors log on. Spider-Man 2 hits theaters June 30.
A backhanded comment about the promotion, which was handled in house, was even mentioned by Jay Leno during a recent monologue on the Tonight Show. Leno said he didn’t know why Embassy Suites was going with Spider-Man, he figured Mr. Bed Bug wasn’t available. Word got back to the folks at Embassy Suites who sent Leno 200 Web packs to distribute to the audience, with a note that said thanks for the plug and by the way the bed bugs stay at competitor’s hotels.
Over the past three years the program helped Embassy Suites drive rates by delivering a value added component with the trip pack — even as summer daily rates have gone up each year since the program launched.
“We don’t have to discount to try to attract guests,” Lee says.
