Hospitality workers—from housekeepers, to front-desk agents to the C-suite—are all focused on creating the best experience for guests and making them feel right at home, while also creating this environment for its team members. Building on this principle, Loews Hotels has introduced “Welcoming You Like Family,” a dynamic multichannel brand campaign, utilizing video, photography, digital experience platforms and on-property touchpoints.
“Welcoming You Like Family” is more than a brand campaign, it’s a philosophy, according to the company, and one that guides its service and operations and unites the Loews properties.
“It’s more than a welcome for sure,” said Sarah Murov, SVP, brand & communications, Loews Hotels & Co. “‘Welcoming you Like Family’ hones in on the idea that Loews is more than simply a collection of hotels; rather it is brand deeply rooted in welcoming and caring for guests like family. To us as a company, this is so much more than a campaign. In fact, I personally don’t even like calling it a campaign.”
The campaign’s brand message was discovered through a positioning exercise Loews Hotels conducted through internal stakeholder interviews, external focus groups and a multidisciplinary internal workshop. Findings revealed the Loews brand was differentiated through its commitment to caring for guests like family.
“For guests, it’s being taken care of by someone who understands you and your individual needs, with a certain informality, just like an ideal family,” Murov explained. “And for team members, it’s about being encouraged to be unscripted, to treat everyone who walks through the door as an individual with unique needs—and to go above and beyond to make them feel at home and welcomed into the Loews family.”
Murov added that the campaign is 100% rooted in the DNA of Loews Hotels & Co, with its brand and positioning centered around its people.
“It’s not a stretch; it’s every aspect is Loews,” she said. “The key insight for the campaign gleaned from research and analysis with internal and external groups was that human engagement is the new luxury.”
She continued, “It’s our people who differentiate us and make Loews, Loews. This is now more relevant than ever, as guests’ concerns about their health, comfort and safety are top of mind due to the pandemic.”
Murov added that the company’s work on the 2020 campaign began early in 2019, as it identified the opportunity of a revitalized campaign message that was true to its brand and highlighted its differentiators and could work at both the brand and local hotel levels.
“We were able to adapt and modify the overall notion of the campaign so ‘Welcoming You Like Family’ is relevant in today’s environment,” said Murov. “So, whether it was guest-facing signage, advertising, the physical distance stickers on the floor or the name of our safety and well-being protocols, we were deliberate and intentional in terms of where both the guest and team member gets exposed to this messaging.”
Partnering with creative and branding agency Winkreative, Loews was able to gain additional insights through gathering, conceptualization, execution and production to bring the new campaign to life. The rollout of the program included an advertising campaign, refreshed visual identity and omni-channel marketing activation, including the Loews website, hotel rooms and social media networks.
The on-property touchpoints touch on earned, paid, owned and internal channels, Murov said. “‘Welcoming You Like Family’ is embedded throughout the customer journey from the dreaming phase to the actual stay,” she added. The on-property campaign includes signage to safely and comfortably welcome and guide guests throughout their stay.
“More than ever, as travel resumes, travelers want to feel safe, protected and cared for, just as they would at home,” Murov said. “What makes the guest experience at Loews properties special is that our team members are empowered to provide unscripted, familial service, further illustrated through some of our campaign taglines such as, ‘a smile that says you’re home’ and ‘the space to be yourself.’”
As Loews has always kept its people at the forefront, “Welcoming You Like Family” does the same by including team members throughout the campaign creative. Loews associates can be found in video and photography assets.
“When you hear the word family, you associate it with hospitality,” Murov said. “Every hotel company has the goal of making guests and team members feel like they are amongst family and that there is something familiar with the experience, the service and vibe of a hotel. Loews really means it. Perhaps it’s because we have been run by the same family since inception. Or maybe it’s the long tenure of so many leaders and team members. There is a sense of pride and belonging at Loews Hotels, and those are two words that one would often describe their own family.”