Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Show Me the Money!


Gold Mark Rewards at Adam's Mark Hotels

Continuity programs designed to get repeat business and cultivate brand loyalty are pretty common in the hotel and travel industries. But when you only have 24 independent hotels in places as diverse as Memphis, TN; Mobile, Alabama and Indianapolis, Indiana you might have a tough time competing with much bigger chains. In addition, the promotional trend toward adding partnerships with airlines and rental car companies put Adam’s Mark at a disadvantage for attracting reward-seeking frequent travelers. Fred was determined to respond with CASH. His idea was to reward people reaching certain tiers of patronage money back in the form of a check. 3%, 4% and 5% levels could be reached within the year in which customers spending a lot of money with Adam’s Mark Hotels and get money back. The Gold Mark Rewards marketing fell to me. To make this long story short – it caused a research firm and its findings to be ignored, an advertising agency to be fired and lots of cash disbursements to customers who probably would have stayed at Adam’s Mark anyway. (No way to tell – the research firm was fired and there was no interest in hiring another one to measure the program’s success).

As a side note: FSK was delighted to feature a favorite word in a series of ads for Gold Mark Rewards - Fungible. 

No comments:

Post a Comment