Research

Best Western revisited: On the inside of brand modification

With more than 4,000 hotels worldwide, chances are good that you'll sleep at a Best Western sometime this year. When you book your room, however, you'll have more information about your lodging than you did in the past. In 2011, the company launched a brand modification initiative that helps travelers anticipate the kind of experience to expect when they check-in. Since Best Western is a "family" of independently owned hotels, modifying the longstanding brand was not a quick or easy decision. Craig Smith, a W. P. Carey MBA (1999) alumnus, had a key inside role in making that change.

2013-06-03

The family road trips from San Diego to Kansas during Craig Smith's childhood always included overnight stays in Best Western hotels. And with more than 4,000 hotels worldwide, chances are good that you'll sleep at a Best Western sometime this year.

When you book your room, however, you'll have more information about your lodging choice than Smith's parents did years ago when they turned their Volkswagen van into a Best Western property. In 2011 the company launched a brand modification initiative that helps travelers anticipate the kind of experience to expect when they check in. Although still one unified brand, Best Western now describes member hotels as Best Western, Best Western Plus, or Best Western Premier. For the hotel owners, the decision to adopt the "descriptors" was big — preceded by years of research and discussion.

Smith, a W. P. Carey MBA (1999) alumnus, had a key inside role in the change. Best Western International is a "family" of independently owned hotels brought together by a brand, and this major initiative had to be approved by a majority of those hotel owners. Clear internal communication was critical while the idea was under review, and once adopted, clear external communication was necessary to move forward. As managing director of corporate communications, Smith was in the middle of it all.

Recently, the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) tipped its hat in recognition of Smith's work on this and other projects when it named him one of the Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Sales and Marketing. The annual list is compiled by a panel of senior industry executives who choose winners based on "creativity and innovation, cutting edge campaigns, triumph in challenging situations and efforts that resulted in dramatic gains."

Traveling man

Smith's career itinerary has led him through the travel industry — with one interesting side trip — from the very beginning. While he was a student at the University of California, San Diego, Smith interned at The Gable Group, a San Diego public relations firm. At the end of the internship, Smith was hired, and among his projects he worked on the "Sleepy Bear Cares" campaign for Travelodge Hotels.

After four years at The Gable Group, Smith decided that he needed a formal education in marketing, and after exploring the options, he chose the W. P. Carey MBA program. He liked the desert and the proximity to family back in San Diego, but most of all he was intrigued by the services marketing focus in the marketing department. Before returning to graduate school, however, he took a break and set off for a backpacking trip through Europe. "Services Marketing," a seminal text written by Center for Services Leadership director Mary Jo Bitner, went along in his pack.

Smith describes the MBA experience as a rite of passage into the professional ranks. "You learn a different way of thinking," he said. "It exposes you to all of the business disciplines — and I will forever be emblazoned with the services triangle!" Marketing faculty who knew Smith back then remember him as one of their best ever marketing MBA students. In fact, he was the marketing student of the year, and his team's project was named top project his graduating year.

Out in the world, Smith found the MBA degree to be an accelerator. It "puts you at a level where you have an honest chance to prove yourself," he commented. And in fact, "I've had incredible ROI" from his educational investment, beginning with his first post-MBA position at Sabre, a travel services company that was at the time owned by American Airlines. Smith met then-Sabre senior executive Ralph Stewart at an MBA event.

Smith's job in executive communications at Sabre involved a lot of writing, and his tenure was an interesting time in the airline business. He was at Sabre when American Airlines spun the company off as a separate business, then he lived through the crises months following the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent rounds of layoffs.

Communicating in adversity was a lesson in itself. It was during those tough times at Sabre that he learned how important it is to tailor the message and its tone to the mindset of an audience. "It's about writing messages in such a way that they will be received," he said.

For example, "people who are fearful for their jobs don't want to hear about how everything's great and we're moving forward," he said. At that point you keep the messages more low key and informative, and save "rah rah" for a later day, when things are going better, he said. "It's something that I've kept in mind ever since," he said.

Doing good while doing well

His next position was a side trip from the hospitality industry, but it was also a homecoming — back to ASU. Smith was looking for a new opportunity when he bumped into marketing Professor Steve Brown at a restaurant in Phoenix. Brown knew that Dean Larry Penley was searching for a marketing director, and Smith was soon named to the post.

The next four years turned out to be exciting times for a marketing and communications specialist. While he was marketing director, the ASU College of Business received a $50 million gift and a new name from Wm. Polk Carey, a New York City real estate financier — whose motto was "doing good while doing well." The excitement of the announcement was followed by the hard work of a major rebranding process. Later, the school launched the first of its MBA programs in China and was also in the international spotlight when Professor Edward Prescott won the Noble Memorial Prize in Economics.

Smith was working daily on a leadership team with professors who had been his teachers just a few years before. He characterizes himself as an idealistic person, and as marketing director at W. P. Carey he had an opportunity to help advance something he respected and valued. "I believed in the school and its mission, so it was easy to sell the school and raise awareness," he said. "It was a great situation for an idealistic person to be."

A Jeffersonian democracy

Smith's next career move returned him to the hotel industry. In 2006 he joined Best Western International as director of hotel and employee communication — his title until last fall, when he took over management of external communications, PR and media relations.

The role placed Smith and his staff in the middle of Best Western's recent brand modification.

Smith calls Best Western a "Jeffersonian democracy." Some 1,800 entrepreneurs own the 2,200 hotels under the Best Western brand in the U.S. and Canada. Best Western International is a not-for-profit support team for those member hotels. The big decisions, Smith said, are voted by the owners, and, benefitting from the wisdom of crowds, "they don't really make many wrong decisions."

The descriptor policy grew out of a realization that consumers were confused by the Best Western brand. If you booked a room at Best Western, you might have a three- or four-star experience, or something much less luxurious. Corporate leadership had tried in the past to implement plans that would differentiate the various kinds of hotels within the brand, but the owners had always balked. The key this time, Smith said, was the way the idea was communicated. Sensitive to the fact that the brand modification would cost owners money at first, President and CEO David Kong and members of his executive team held 40-to-50 meetings around the U.S. explaining why the initiative was so important. "I credit those face-to-face meetings, and there was a lot of communication and education around each one," Smith said.

The descriptors themselves were selected, at least in part, for communication reasons. "We chose words that had inherent meaning," Smith said. "Plus" and "Premier" are easily understood concepts that needed little further definition. All of the descriptors encompass the basic values of the brand — cleanliness and customer care — and indicate that the designated hotels offer something more.

At the heart of the brand are those owners, and the personal touch that goes along with operating a family or small business. "We're people-based; we're families," Smith said. "When you stay at a Best Western, the person at the front desk might be the daughter of the owner — or the owner himself. You're staying with them. So our new ad campaign is 'Stay with people who care.'"

Results so far have been good. The indices that measure market share show Best Western hotels across all three descriptor categories performing well in their competitive sets — better than before the brand was modified.

Future bookings

It's been a good time to own a hotel, Smith commented; we are emerging from a recession when few new hotels were built. In fact, the industry follows the pattern of the stock market. When fortunes are rising on the street, hotel bookings climb too. The pause in new hotels opening will not last much longer and hotel brands need to be ready to compete.

So what does the future hold for hoteliers?

Fundamental change in the business is coming from the web, Smith said. Best Western moved early into the digital space, with success. The company's fact sheet reports that its website is number 1 in the industry for response time, availability and consistency, and its social media efforts are the most innovative in their competitive set. Smith said his company was the first major brand to allow booking of rooms through Facebook, for example, and its call centers have generally been shrinking as people increasingly book their stay online. But the online landscape is changing as the powerhouses of search alter the way ads are disseminated to consumers. For example, Smith said that companies used to be able to decide where their online ads would appear, and on what device, but Google recently rescinded much of that control.

Those digital forces are affecting the communications discipline, too. Gone are the days, Smith said, when companies could control a message with press releases and spokespeople. With social media and blogs, information moves freely through the public mind and potentially, anybody in the company can, knowingly or unknowingly, become a spokesman.

Organizations will always need people they can trust who can write, Smith said, but the communicator's job in the future increasingly will be about setting tone, providing focus and teaching poise. If the internet continues to make virtually anyone the voice of the organization, then communicators will need to educate and "get everyone headed in the right direction."

Marketing