As I’ve mentioned before, Starwood Hotels & Resorts does an amazing job at giving each one of it’s hotel flags a unique branding angle – differentiating each one of its brands from another. This is a great approach because it gives  person the customer a reason to want to go to a Starwood Hotel vs a non-Starwood hotel which does not stand out.

The LeMeridien brand – a fairly new brand of Starwood, since it was just purchased and integrated into Starwood Hotels & Resorts in the past two years is a brand with a lot of history – not necessarily a history that goes back centuries, but a history where it was once owned by Air France which used the hotels to promote their airline and vice-versa. Since Air France sold the chain, it went through a number of different brand owners, finally ending up in the hands of Starwood Capital which purchased the real estate along with Lehman Brothers, and the franchisee and management portion of LeMeridien was purchased by Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Currently, Starwood Capital owns the majority of the LeMeridien real estate, and has Starwood Hotels & Resorts manage the properties.

Since Starwood Hotels & Resorts purchased LeMeridien, which has only 5 locations in America, the other 114 locations are located outside of the US, there has not been much done in regards to renovating the properties, or giving the properties their own “look and feel” besides fully integrating it within the Starwood Hotels umbrella – that’s not to say that the brand is staid and old or that the properties were not well kept up, LeMeridien just did not do much to promote itself outside of its current reputation. I think Starwood’s feeling was that LeMeridien had such a great reputation on its own – why mess with something that works?

Well, that’s all changed now!

LeMeridien is embarking on a brand makeover, named LM 100 which seems to be heading in the direction of a “European W Hotels”. The brand make over is more than a new slogan, or a new lobby design; LeMeridien’s goal is to expose their customers to culture. What does that mean exactly? Well the first item is LeMeridien’s goal of having 100 design experts as consultants by 2012 – Jean-Georges Vongerichten as a restaurant consultant, (Jean-Georges also is supposed to open restaurant concepts throughout hotels in the Starwood umbrella – under an agreement signed almost two years ago, although I have not seen the fruits of that yet) Andrea Illy as coffee consultant, and so on. LeMeridien will join other Starwood Brands in getting its own branded bed, offer elevator music specially composed by the musician Henry Scars Struck, and instead of turn down service with a piece of candy on the pillow – expect to see a bedtime storybook. LeMeridien will also offer promotions with local cultural institutions – such as art galleries, dance troupes, opera houses, giving guests ideas of where to be entertained during their stay and also allowing the guests to learn more about something they may not have been exposed to previously.

Most people may think that is awfully silly – why do you need to hire a “consultant” on coffee?? I think its a great idea, since these consultants will do more than just give their opinion on what type of coffee should be served (as well as make a few bucks – since I’m sure they will be suggesting their own), but they will have the ability to give insight into how the coffee should be served, where it should be served, and the like – all details that while seemingly minor on the outset can really set LeMeridien apart from the rest. Some other examples are encouraging customers to take home the Keys to their rooms and use them as collectables since the keys will have different pieces of original artwork printed on them.

Its amazing how many hotels do not offer anything special on their key. I always take a key from every one of my hotel stays – (hey.. At least its not a towel.. Cut me some slack!) and most keys either have the hotel logo or promote the hotel companies rewards program.. What a missed branding opportunity for the brand, not the hotel company as a whole!

All of these changes are being directed by LeMeridien’s new Senior Vice President Eva Ziegler, who was formerly from Toyota where she was in their advertising department. This is another example of Starwood using people who have a marketing background and putting them into executive positions – without the directive coming from the top, it will never achieve the type of acceptance that Starwood is looking for.

LeMeridien clearly believes in the following quote from Jawaharlal Nehru – “Culture is the widening of the mind and the spirit”.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

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